Hunter x Hime
by Justanimefanfics
Summary: [Under Revision] Living in her brother's shadows made her wish for everything and everyone to just disappear. But when her wish came true, Himeko wanted to swallow her own words. What happened back then still remained a mystery to her, and all she could do was wait. The only way for her to find clues was to first become a Hunter. Thus, her journey began. [Slow Romance]
1. A New Beginning

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Hunter x Hunter or any of the characters in this story except my OCs. Hunter x Hunter is owned by Yoshihiro Togashi.

Before I start the story, I want to point out that I will not reveal any of the OC's backstory, strengths and weaknesses until I find a good point, so the first few chapters will just follow the original story line; so please do not assume that she will be over powered or anything before reading those chapters.

This story is currently being edited, mainly because my writing style seemed to be lacking detail and maturity, so don't be taken back if the chapters start to look different. I won't change anything major though, so there is no need for older readers to reread if they do not wish to :)

Also, a big thank you to **Kitty-Cat123** for being my beta and helping me edit some chapters of this fic ^^

And also if you are still reading, thank you for reading and have fun! I really appreciate all of your support.

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**Hunter x Hime: Prologue**

_A New Beginning_

_..._

Himeko was anxiously waiting to board the ship which would take her to the site of the 287th Hunter exam. She managed to arrive at Whale island a few hours ago after missing the previous ship because she took a 'couple' of wrong turns here and there. No worries though, she did manage to arrive at the harbour just in time for the ship with some time to spare. Although she arrived a few hours early, she just remained at the harbour, her eyes fixed on the ship just in case it left without her.

While waiting, she examined all the other candidates that were boarding the ship along with her. Most of them- no all of them were middle-aged men, but that didn't surprise her at all. Hunters needed strength and stamina, so the exam was a lot more popular among men than women; well, at least that was what she heard somewhere. Looking at the crowd, she just knew that she wouldn't be able to get along with anyone. None of the men looked exactly friendly, and judging by their expressions, they were just waiting to throw the weaker men off the ship when they get the chance. But then again, she usually didn't talk to strangers unless it benefited her in the end. Whether it was to ask for directions or get information out of someone, she hated to rely on people and preferred to do things by herself. It didn't bother her though; there was no one to tell her where to go, or how to live her life. To be perfectly honest, she liked to be alone. She lived her life for herself and no one else. No people meant no drama. In any case, the Hunter exam was going to be something she had to do on her own. It was going to be all men; or in this, case all men and girls for themselves.

When it was finally her turn, she made her way up onto the ship much to everyone's surprise. While she was waiting around, she didn't seem to surprise anyone. People assumed that she must've been someone's daughter sending them off. Seeing her walk up made people take another look, wondering whether she got lost, or didn't want her father to leave for the exam. After all, you wouldn't be able to see a twelve year old girl on a ship full of middle-aged men everyday, right? But her expression said otherwise. She was a lot more serious, and concentrating more than most of the people around her. That perfectly symmetrical frown left people awestruck for a moment, but they couldn't take her too serious after remembering that she was just a child.

There was nothing out of the ordinary about her looks as she looked just like any other girl. She had a petite build, as expected for her age. Her skin was pale which contrasted with her straight black hair which reached up to her shoulders, and her forehead was covered with her straight bangs. Her eyes were deep blue, almost like a gem; a sapphire to be precise. She also wore a pair of earrings with a little gem, which seemed to be the same colour as her eyes; a sapphire. Another distinctive feature was the small beauty mark she had underneath her mouth.

"Hey, little girl, aren't you a bit too young for the Hunter exam? You should go home and play with your dollhouse or something," One of the many men on the ship commented, seeing her on the ship. A couple of the men around him snickered at his comment, much to her displeasure. However, she didn't even spare them a glance, neither did she waste her own energy to raise her brow at his comment.

_"All muscles and talk, but no brains. How did I guess?"_ She mumbled to herself, not surprised by it all. They were a waste of space, food, air and water; she'd rather have them kick each other off the ship in a couple hours than get involved with them. They were acting all chummy now, but it wouldn't take too long for them to show their true faces and try to get rid of as many competitors as possible. She needn't waste her energy on them, so she preoccupied herself by finding a space for her to sit down. _"Besides, I don't even like dolls. They are creepy as hell!"_

Then again, she couldn't blame them and their stupid stereotypical views. She was a kid that just turned twelve a few months back. You needed to be twelve in order to get a Hunter's license and she applied on the day of her birthday as she didn't want to waste time. Although you could apply for the exam once you're twelve, it didn't change the fact that children rarely participated. Come on, which ordinary kid would be allowed to take a brutal exam while battling against death just for a piece of plastic?

_"I'm no ordinary kid,"_ that was just Himeko's opinion, whether it held some truth to it or not. The fact that they belittled her angered her, but she quickly managed to cool her head again. _"They probably don't have enough brains to look past my looks and appreciate my superior intellectual abilities compared to theirs," _said the twelve year old out of all possible people on the ship.

Himeko took off her peach coloured rucksack before settling down and continuing to examine the other examinees. She didn't know what to expect during the exam, so for now, everyone on this ship was her rival. But of course, she had to pick out the ones she specifically had to look out for. To her, they didn't look like much anyway. Although most of them were double, if not, triple her size; but they seemed like they relied more on their strength. In her opinion, a healthy brain would also be needed to become a Hunter. Common sense told her that the word 'exam' itself meant that they had to use at least some of their brain.

She sighed as she opened her rucksack and looked through it. All she brought with her were spare change of clothes, which consisted of a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, just in case her cream coloured one piece dress got dirty. Her dress reached her knees and it was fairly simple and plain, with no extra designs or embroidery on it. She never exactly understood fashion, therefore she avoided heavy accessorising and always went with something that couldn't go wrong. She also had a towel with her, along with a toothbrush, some toothpaste, a hair brush and all those little essentials. After a while, she finally found the book she was looking for. It was quite a big one and looked a bit too advanced for a child of her age. Nonetheless, she started reading from where she had left off while ignoring the constant fighting and bickering in the background, going into her own world.

A while later, the ship had become a lot quieter. Some couldn't bear the ship rocking back and forth and became sea sick, others just sat around waiting for the ship to arrive at the examination site.

"You are all pathetic, yet you want to become Hunters and you can't even take a small boat ride?" The Captain of the ship complained as he passed by some of the seasick candidates. He was right; if they couldn't take a little boat ride how were they meant to take the Hunter exam? How were they meant to venture out to unknown lands for adventures, if they couldn't even handle the venturing?

A couple of hours later, the sound of the seagulls interrupted her thoughts on the book. She looked up and they were all flying towards the direction they just came from, as if they were afraid of what was ahead. The sky was still clear ahead but if that was the case, why would the seagulls flee? The deck of the ship was almost deserted and she also thought it wouldn't be safe to stay on deck anymore, so she made her way inside just incase something were to happen.

She opened the door and found a mass of men lying sick on the floor. _"Is this for real? Are you trying to tell me that all of them got sea sick?" _She thought to herself. The fact that nearly every candidate, if not all were lying sick on the floor astonished her. However her thoughts were interrupted by the voice of a young boy who was running back and forth.

"Here mister, try chewing on this herb. It will help you with your seasickness." The young, black haired boy in green offered one of the sick men a medicinal herb, along with a cup of water. But he wasn't the only one who was still in the game. She looked around to see a blond boy with blue eyes, probably in his mid-teens, quietly reading a book while resting on a hammock. Another, much older looking man, with black hair, was sitting against the wall, snacking on a green apple before cringing at its sourness. He was wearing a suit and tie and wore sunglasses, so she couldn't make out his eye colour.

She stepped into the room, closed the door behind her and walked over to a little corner that was unoccupied by anyone. She watched the little boy run around, helping the sick men in the room. It gave her mixed emotions to see someone around her age on the ship, but after analysing his face, she thought that the boy wouldn't be able to make it past the first stage. To her, he seemed too naive and kind at first glance; he wouldn't hesitate to help out his competition just like he did right now, which in the end could be his own disadvantage. How could he separate good from evil? However, Himeko somehow found herself intrigued by him. The last person she would have expected to see on the ship was someone like him. His motives for taking the exam, his attitude; he seemed so much different from all the people she's seen before. He genuinely cared about everyone, whether they were strangers or not. Most of these men must have ridiculed him too when he first entered the ship, yet he long forgot about all that just to help them recover. It was something she would never do, she'd only cared about people that genuinely cared for her. But as of now, there were none. She learnt to approach people with an ulterior motive, so after she got what she wanted she would cut ties. Of course, she'd have no one that cared about her except maybe herself. But if it wasn't for the Hunter exam, she might have actually wanted to talk to this strange boy, even if it were to satisfy her own curiosity.

Finally realising what she had just thought, she frantically shook her head. _"Concentrate on the Hunter's license. I don't need companions! I can do it myself, just like how I always did."_

Her gaze eventually shifted to the teen and the older man minding their own business, not paying any attention to what was happening around them. It seemed like they were quite confident with their abilities for them to be this chill, which worried her a little. That was when she finally knew; these three were the people who would make it to the Hunter exam. For now, these three were the ones she had to look out for if she wanted to pass.

A little while later, the door opened once again. It was the Captain, who looked around the room with a disgusted expression.

"So only four people have what it takes to become a Hunter!"


	2. Three Heroes

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 1**

_Three Heroes_

...

The captain looked around the room, and his eyes traveled from the little boy, to the blond teen, to the old man, and finally onto Himeko. She wondered what he wanted now out of all times; all she heard the captain doing was complaining about all the lousy applicants all day. He should be in his cabin, trying to steer the ship and stop it from rocking so much.

"Well, I guess you four will have to do for now," he said in a slightly displeased tone, then gestured them to follow him. The little, raven haired boy stood up and followed with no second thought, unlike the other three who hesitated. For them, there was no need to follow the captain; all they had to do was mind their own business until they arrived at the examination site. The blond boy went back to reading through his book, while the older man proceeded to look through the erotic magazine he brought along. Himeko briefly stared at the door before averting her gaze too. Seeing the other two candidates preoccupied, she wondered whether she should also take out her book and continue reading until they reach their destination.

The sea was now stormy, causing the waves to crash against the ship and the rain to hit down on the deck. The waves caused the ship to rock back and forth uncontrollably, and it only started to get worse.

_"What the hell?"_ Himeko thought, looking around the rocking room. She looked over at the teen and the old man who were also still in the room with her. The pair were also put off whatever they were doing and focused their attention on their surrounding, wondering when this would finally stop. The sick men were sliding and rolling around the floor in the direction of the ship rocking. It just made their conditions a lot worse, causing most of them to throw up all over the floor, making Himeko gag herself, seeing all kinds of unidentifiable chunks in the thick vomit flooding the cabin floor.

_"That's it, I've had enough! This captain is going to hear a piece of my mind! What kind of a captain is he when he can't even get his own ship through a storm?!"_

Putting her peach rucksack back on, Himeko stumbled back on her feet and tried her best to fight the rocking ship making her way out of the cabin, trying hard to avoid the sick men on the floor along with the vomit. The two still standing candidates watched the little girl storm out of the room, probably about to throw a hissy fit at the captain, who was not going to be in the mood to listen to her. A brief silence surrounded the room, and neither wanted to start a conversation with a stranger. The captain had instructed them to follow, and now both the children had followed; both for different reasons. Once the next person started to throw up onto the floor, the teen was the next one to follow. Since the two of the remaining candidates already left, he figured that there was nothing to lose. Besides, it was a lot better than staying in a room that was starting to reek of vomit.

_"It's better to find out the current situation from the captain," _he thought to himself, slowly exiting the dark room, leaving one person behind.

The older man's eyes followed the teen and watched him walk out of the door, leaving him alone with all the sick men. Not knowing what else to do, he followed. _"He left too, I guess I have no other choice now."_

Himeko was the first one to storm into the steering room with the captain and the little boy waiting. The captain grew impatient waiting for them, and before she could give him a piece of her mind about steering the ship properly, the remaining two candidates also arrived. The captain finally opened his mouth, "It took you three some time. I thought you wanted to drop out." His voice was stern since there was no time to waste for their dilly dallying. The men on the ship were sick and most of his crew was out cold too, so he needed as much help as he could get to get the ship through the storm. His voice somehow intimidated Himeko and made her swallow the words she was about to spit out. Seeing her slightly startled didn't exactly surprise the teen; in his eyes she looked like the type to talk big. He turned to the captain, waiting for him to explain why he called the four out.

"You four are the only candidates that are left, the others will all be eliminated," the captain announced, looking through the list of applicants, "could you all tell me your names?"

No one really wanted to answer at first, and there was a brief silence amongst the remaining candidates whilst they were waiting for someone to step forward and take the spotlight. Three of them knew exactly who would go first, while the remaining one looked at the others trying to see whether anyone was going to answer the captain. He assumed they weren't, so he decided to go first.

"I'm Gon Freecss," the little boy was first to answer. He seemed quite simple minded but very determined; too kind to be true. Why such an honest boy wanted to become a Hunter, she didn't know. Whether he was Hunter material, she doubted. He looked like he couldn't even hurt an ant, yet he was brimming with confidence, smiling widely at the captain. The captain spent a moment to examine the boy, as if he recognised him from somewhere. It felt like deja vu to him, as if this scenario had happened to him before. But he had never seen this boy, neither had he ever heard of anyone called Gon before.

"Himeko," she answered solely with her name, shifting the captain's attention onto her. Telling him her name wouldn't hurt. After all, it was just a name. The captain examined her too; she seemed the same age as Gon, but completely different. Though Gon still had that approachable, childlike aura to him, he got a feeling that Himeko was more selective about whom she interacted with. He thought hard. There were Hunters around the world that worked independently, but working as a team was a key skill employers would be looking for. He wondered whether she had that ability to work together with strangers.

"I'm Kurapika," the blond teen answered. He was very calm and reserved, but also a little distant; different than the others, that was for sure. Based on the book in his hand, it could be assumed that Kurapika was quite wise despite his young age. He didn't look athletic though due to his very thin build, so Himeko wondered why he was taking the Hunter exam in the first place. He could easily get into any other job. He seemed smart enough to get into college with a scholarship and she was sure that major firms would hire him once he graduated. Yet, there was a look in his blue eyes she saw. In contrast to their cool blue colour, they were also burning with passion. He wanted to become a Hunter, and he had a reason he wouldn't tell anyone.

"My name is Leorio," the older looking man was last to answer. He, too, was quiet, but different from Kurapika. Leorio had a more approachable aura compared to Kurapika, but still not as approachable as Gon. Maybe it was just due to their differences in appearance. He didn't look particularly strong either, but Himeko didn't want to judge him based on his appearance. He made it this far, so he must be somewhat capable.

"May I know the reason you all want to become a Hunter?" The captain started questioning them. Apart from Gon, everyone else seemed bothered by the captain starting to ask personal questions. The reason they got on the ship was to be safely dropped at the examination site, not to be interrogated by someone who didn't have anything to do with the exam. Despite that, Gon happily gave the captain the answers he wanted.

"My father is a Hunter. He left me with my aunt while I was still a baby. I want to become a Hunter and find out for myself what being a Hunter is all about. I want to find him!" Gon was almost too honest for his own good, Himeko thought. He was the only one who willingly answered the captain's questions as soon as they were asked. The others remained quiet although the captain was looking at them waiting for an answer. Himeko, Kurapika and Leorio waited in silence, hoping someone would start talking and point out how pointless this was. None of them were particularly comfortable to share such personal details with four complete strangers.

"You're not an examiner, so I don't have to tell you," Leorio was the first one of them to speak his mind, waiting for the other two to back him up. Once he took initiative, the second person started talking.

"I agree with Reorio," Kurapika agreed, while Himeko just decided to stay quiet waiting for everyone else to deal with the situation. She didn't want to waste her breath before the exam started, besides these two seemed to have the same opinion as her about this useless interrogation process, so her input wasn't needed. Leorio. however, became a little annoyed at the fact that Kurapika purposely mispronounced his name in a disrespectful tone.

"It's _Leorio-san_ to you!" he yelled, emphasising on his name and the honorifics to go with it, but Kurapika just ignored him and turned his head away coolly, much to Leorio's dismay, "Why you little..."

_"Wow, if everyone taking the exam is such a moron, I'll pass with flying colours!"_ Himeko smirked, looking at the two arguing immaturely, although they were the eldest out of the remaining applicants. Kurapika caught her staring and took a glance of her, before turning his head to face the captain again with no second thought. He had a feeling that she was making fun of both him and Leorio in her head, but it didn't bother him at all. To him, her opinion didn't matter at all. She could think whatever she liked about him, it didn't bother him the slightest. After all, he wasn't going to see any of these people again after the exam.

Leorio on the other hand seemed a lot more bothered by her mocking gaze. First it was Kurapika, now Himeko. He just wanted to respect he deserved as someone older than them.

"What do you think you are looking at?" He yelled at her.

Himeko did the same as Kurapika and just turned back to face the captain, ignoring the irritated Leorio. _"I'm not going to waste my breath on him."_

"Let's see, that means we have three more dropouts," the captain informed them, looking through the long list of applicants. Everybody froze. This was the last thing they expected to happen, but it didn't take them long to realise that they've tested the captain's patience for too long.

"You still don't understand?" He asked raising his brow, "The Hunter exam started as soon as you stepped on this ship. It's my job to screen the applicants. If I don't like you, you don't pass. It's as simple as that!"

_"Damn it, I should have just stuck around with the kid,"_ she cursed at herself in her head, looking at Gon, who just smiled back at her. There was a silence between the four of them, as they were all waiting for someone to start sorting this mess out. Himeko thought of all the possible ways to apologise and convince the captain to let her continue. She could just tell him the truth of why she wanted to take the exam, but she'd rather not tell a complete stranger secrets about herself. The fact that there were three other strangers standing in the room with her bothered her more so she kept her mouth closed. Begging the captain to let her stay would hurt her pride, especially if she were to do it in front of others. She could try changing her talking tone and imitate the tone Gon was talking in order to earn their trust. Whatever she did, she just had to get her license this year! This all would have just been a waste of her time if she got as far as getting on the ship to the examination site and not get a license. Even if it were to cost her an arm and a leg, she will get a license this year.

Luckily for her, someone else started talking before she had to. She just had to go along with Kurapika and hope that he found a sane way for them to still be able to stick around. He looked sane enough, so he probably found a good way to get out of this situation.

"I'm the last survivor of the Kurta clan," he confessed quietly. He was being truthful this time around, but at the same time he didn't want to tell them about his past. However, he knew that this was the only way for him to stay in the game and proceeded anyway. "A few years ago, my whole clan was murdered by a group of criminals. I want to become a Hunter and arrest those criminals to avenge my clan." He tried hard to conceal his anger by clenching his fist to remain level-headed. This made him seem like he was speaking the truth.

His two lines of storytelling caught Himeko's attention, _"Kurta clan?"_

In the end though, Kurapika just ended up speaking the truth, which Himeko didn't want to do, but in order to remain here, she had to go along with it. The captain nodded in approval, and moved on to Himeko to start talking. Kurapika was honest about his feelings, but Himeko didn't want to be honest. This was something too personal to tell just anyone, and she felt like the captain was being insensitive about it. A lot of people entered the exam for fame, money, and to brag about their licenses. But she knew that there were a handful of people who had a genuine reason for entering the exam they wished to keep to themselves. Kurapika was one, she was another and she knew that Leorio had his own story as well.

"Unlimited knowledge!" She lied to him. "A Hunter gets access to all kinds of information and books that a normal person won't even be able to dream about. I get to travel to places that are off limits to ordinary folks, and I can read all the books I want without being restricted." It was all a lie. She wasn't ready to be as honest as Gon and Kurapika, she wasn't like them. She wished to have her own privacy about certain things and the captain knew this. He could tell it was a lie after meeting countless of aspiring Hunters and hearing the same lies over and over again. Whatever her real answer might have been, her resolve to become a Hunter was as strong as Gon and Kurapika's, so he let it slide. Although he didn't accept her answer, he accepted her determination to become a Hunter. With that, he moved on to the last person standing.

"Why I want to become a Hunter?" Leorio questioned, "For money of course. You can buy anything with money. The finest liquor, expensive cars, a big mansion, women." At this point, he seemed full of himself and Kurapika got easily annoyed with his attitude. He's been noticing small, but irritating things Leorio did throughout the journey. From loudly slamming the door when he first walked into the cabin, to loudly smacking on that green apple earlier while Kurapika was trying to read. They didn't exactly talk before this, but Kurapika thought those little things along with his answer to the captain's question just now was more than enough to judge what kind of person Leorio really was.

"You can't buy class with money, Leorio." He added a rude remark.

_"What a little shit!"_ Himeko thought after hearing Kurapika's remark. _"He can just keep his opinions to himself instead of trying to stir things up. We all might get kicked out if these two start fighting, and I can't afford to fail before the exam has even started. I'd better stay out of this with the kid. Sticking with him seems like the sanest idea."_

With that, Himeko backed out and moved away so she was no longer in between the two. There was tension between the two of them and they continued to insult each other until Leorio angered Kurapika by insulting his clan, "Maybe I should put an end to your filthy clan once and for all!"

_"That was seriously low,"_ Himeko thought, narrowing her eyes at Leorio. Insulting someone was one thing, but insulting their loved ones was another.

Just like Himeko predicted, Kurapika couldn't control his temper anymore, "Take that back!" He finally snapped. He then looked at the bystanders, who were waiting for them to come to a conclusion, "We will take this fight outside."

He was the first one to stomp out of the room, while Leorio just scoffed and followed him, slamming the door behind him out of anger. The captain didn't bother to interfere with them, and Himeko wasn't surprised by that either. He had other things to worry about; for example getting his ship through this storm. He didn't have the time and patience to deal with their sissy fight. However, she was surprised at the fact that Gon didn't do anything about it. He seemed like the type of person to cut in immediately and split the two up.

"Shouldn't we try to stop them?" Himeko asked him. She usually wasn't someone who would meddle with other people's affairs and neither did she care what happened to Leorio and Kurapika. Their attitudes were horrible, and it didn't bother her the slightest. They could go and beat each other up, break a few bones or rip each other's hairs out , but right now they had to get through the storm safely and in order to do that, they all had to stay together and needed as many helping hands as they could find. Moreover, she was plain curious about Gon's response.

"No, leave them be. My Aunt Mito once said that to understand how someone feels, you must first understand why they are angry."

Gon might be really naive, but Himeko took some liking to him after hearing those words. He was a good kid, and very honest. She found it quite refreshing to talk to someone like him. For now, she decided to stick with him, but she also knew that she might have to fight him during the exam later on. If that were to happen, she was prepared to go all out on him. But whether his honest soul would get him through the Hunter exam, she still doubted.

"How about you two help out around the ship?" The captain suggested. It didn't take much to convince Gon. who was happy to help out anytime, so the captain just looked at Himeko waiting for a response.

"I don't get a choice, do I?" She questioned, knowing that Gon and her were two of the only people capable of helping around the ship. The captain gave her a small smile before nodding, causing her to let out a sigh. The last thing she wanted to do was do anything before the Hunter exam started. She wanted to conserve her energy for what was going to happen at the exam site. But eventually, the two of them agreed and ran out in order to help out the crew who was running back and forth trying to get the ship through the heavy storm.

As they were running up onto the deck, Gon started to notice how quiet Himeko really was. She didn't exactly come off as a shy person; she just didn't choose to speak much. It didn't bother him much though, he was excited to meet someone the same age as him. Growing up on Whale Island had its ups and downs for him. On the one hand, he got all the freedom he wanted. From catching fresh fish for breakfast to spending some nights under the starry sky. He enjoyed growing up with Mito and his grandmother on his home island. But no matter how friendly the fellow citizens of the island were, it didn't change the fact that there were hardly any children his age. Even if he did manage to find a friend his age, they would always travel back to where they came from after a couple of days. Even if Himeko didn't make an effort to socialise with him, he wanted to talk to her.

"Hey, Himeko, right?" Gon started the conversation. "How old are you?"

Himeko just gave him a one worded answer, "twelve."

"Really? That means we are the same age!" He said, grinning widely after hearing her response.

"Yeah, I kinda figured. You have to be at least twelve to enter the Hunter exam, and you don't seem any older than me," she pointed out, "you certainly don't act like it either."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?" Gon asked, pouting playfully. Himeko quickly grew fond of him, whether she liked it or not. He still had that innocence every child had while being protected from the real world. For obvious reasons, Himeko only imagined muscle brains to take part in the Hunter exam just like the men that were now sea sick. One or two people like Kurapika and Leorio were expected, but Gon was a complete shock to her. She let out the smile she couldn't suppress anymore, which surprised Gon a little.

"You're smiling!" Gon cheered, being pleased with himself at the same time for being able to hold a conversation with someone so antisocial. Since Himeko first stepped on the boat, she always seemed to be on her own and only chose to speak when asked a question. She didn't even smile once until now, "but honestly, you don't act your age either. You should laugh more often!"

_"He just called me old..."_ Himeko thought slightly offended, before quietly chuckling to herself. "Just call me Kou. 'Hime'ko doesn't really fit me well. I'm not Princess like at all."

Gon took this as a sign that they were not strangers anymore. "Sure, Kou it is then!" he smiled, "let's be friends! We can take the exam together. It'll be fun!" Himeko was slightly struck by what he said. She wasn't used to the whole 'friendship' thing, and she never exactly stayed in one place long enough to make long term comrades. She also felt like she worked better alone without people slowing her down. Gon took this silence as a sign of hesitation, but he didn't really understand why she was hesitating so much. "You don't want to become friends?"

She quickly brushed it off. "No, that's not it!" She then continued, "I just feel like people only approach me if they need something from me. I've never really had someone ask me whether they wanted to become friends with me. It just feels strange not knowing why someone would want to befriend me."

"Because you are really kind!" Gon answered her doubts almost instantly. "You try not to come off as an approachable person, but you are really nice." Himeko was left smiling to herself once again hearing Gon's response, and he took this as a sign of agreement.

"Let's take the exam together. I'm sure both of us will pass together!" Himeko nodded, embarrassed, and making a wide grin appear on Gon's face. "Let's go and help out on the deck then!"

As the two of them stepped out on the deck, they saw Kurapika and Leorio ready to fight it out between them. Gon didn't step in, and Himeko decided to listen to Gon's aunt's words and not interfere either. It was a fight between the two of them and they should come up with their own resolve, without her or Gon meddling. They watched the rain crashing down on the deck, and Kurapika and Leorio were struggling to stay up on their feet. With the wind blowing the wind towards their faces, it made it hard for them to see their surrounding.

Gon and Himeko remained still until they saw one of the crew members struggling to stand on the swaying ship. He was about to be thrown overboard, and Himeko watched in horror as he lost his balance. She stood frozen still, not knowing what to do until she saw Gon running towards him from the corner of her eye.

"Gon, it's dangerous!" she shouted, but Gon didn't appear to be listening, so she decided to run after him to help out. Gon caught the crew member's right leg while Himeko managed to grab the left leg. However, now all three of them were about to get thrown into the water. Suddenly Himeko felt someone grab one of her legs. She stopped falling and opened her eyes to see that Gon wasn't falling either. Someone had caught them, and they were now pulled back on board. After recovering from a close death, Himeko looked up to see Kurapika and Leorio panting while looking at them with worried faces.

"You idiots, don't you two think before acting?" Leorio snapped at them. "You could have drowned out there if it wasn't for us catching you!"

"I agree with him. That was a very reckless thing to do!" Kurapika agreed in a quieter, yet stern tone. Gon just smiled at the two of them.

"Well, you did catch us, didn't you?" He smiled at them innocently. They didn't have the heart to shout at him anymore and just smiled at him in defeat. The crew member thanked them all before heading back inside to continue what he was doing. After the collective team effort, Leorio looked at Kurapika.

"I'm really sorry for earlier," he was the first to apologise, and from his voice, Kurapika could hear how bad he felt, "I shouldn't have insulted you or your clan."

"I should be the one apologising. I shouldn't have disrespected you in the first place, Leorio-san," Kurapika returned a sincere apology too, this time making sure to give the elder applicant more respect.

"Just call me Leorio," Leorio rubbed his back, and looked away embarrassedly. "Using honorifics makes you sound distant."

The atmosphere between them wasn't tense anymore. Just as Gon said earlier, time was able to sort their differences out. Although they were on bad terms not too long ago, it didn't take long for them to come to an agreement and apologise to each other. For some reason, the two didn't seem so bad after all. Himeko just couldn't help but smile, _"Gon's aunt was right! This is an interesting turn of events."_

"Kou!" Gon called Himeko, breaking her out of her thought bubble."High five!" He raised his hand up waiting for a high-five from Himeko. Himeko seemed in a daze for a while, but she ended up giving him that high five.

"Wait, I thought your name was Himeko," Leorio interrupted them in a surprised tone, "Well, either way, Kou suits a reckless brat like you more than Himeko.*"

"I never gave you permission to call me Kou, _Leorio_," Himeko pointed out, raising a brow at him.

"I never gave you permission to drop the honorifics, brat!" Leorio responded in the same tone as her. "To you, it's still Leorio-san or Leorio-sama!"

"As if I'd call you that!" Himeko stuck her tongue out at him and laughed, making Gon and Kurapika laugh too. She was a bit embarrassed at the fact that she started to grow more attached to these three. It felt a bit new to her, but she could get used to it. Kurapika and Leorio seemed to open up as well, and all of the sudden, they didn't seem that bad anymore. They showed a bit of attitude at the beginning, but Himeko wasn't any better, although she just kept her thoughts to herself.

"Well done you four." The captain interrupted their conversation. "You all pass." He informed them, causing their attention to naturally turn. He stepped onto the deck as the storm was finally starting to fade.

"I thought only Gon passed," Kurapika said, slightly surprised by the captain's sudden change of heart.

"It's up to me to decide whether you pass or fail, and I say you all pass." With that, the captain quietly left the deck, and headed back inside to continue navigating the ship through the sea.

"Damn that old man. Walking off after acting so cool," Leorio mumbled, loud enough for everyone else to hear.

"Isn't this great? We all passed!" Gon cheered loudly, as he grabbed Himeko's hands and started jumping up and down along with her.

"Hold up, we aren't even at the exam site yet, Gon. You make it sound like we've passed the exam," Himeko reminded him, trying to calm Gon down.

"But isn't it great? The four of us can take the Hunter exam together!" Nothing seemed like it could stop Gon from celebrating, and Himeko struggled to keep up with his jumping as he still hadn't let go of her hands. Leorio and Kurapika smiled at the children who were celebrating their acceptance as official Hunter exam candidates.

The skies were starting to clear up, leaving gaps in the clouds for the rays of sunshine to shine upon them, and open up a new path for the four heroes. None of them could imagine the adventures that they were going to face, and the strong bond that was going to form between them.

* * *

*Kou - It's a unisex name meaning 'light', 'peace' or 'happiness', but the name is still commonly given to males. That's why Leorio said the name suits her better than Himeko (Hime means princess, Ko means child) due to the way she behaves.


	3. The Exam Site

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 2**

_The Exam Site_

_..._

The storm passed, and the ship safely reached land eventually. During the time on the ship, Gon somehow convinced everyone to help the sick men out. No one could refuse when he asked, especially knowing that Gon would still help out alone even if all three of them refused. Surprisingly, Leorio seemed to be quite an expert at it as he knew exactly what to do. While Gon relied more on the knowledge about medical herbs he learnt back on Whale Island, Leorio seemed to know a lot more than just what herbs to use. The last person Kurapika and Himeko expected to take charge was Leorio, but somehow they felt like they knew more about him now than they did when they first met; which was a pretty good sign. Whilst Gon and Leorio were mainly focusing on nursing the sick back to health, Kurapika and Himeko followed Leorio's orders and assisted the two. Although their first impressions of each other weren't that good, a short and sweet introduction was all it took to erase whatever happened earlier on that day. Not only that, working together also helped them get used to each other, and the captain took a note of this. Though Gon seemed perfectly capable of working together with just about anyone, he doubted whether Kurapika, Himeko or Leorio had the necessary team working skills to become successful Hunters. But seeing them now, he wasn't so worried about them after all. Not only that, he was somewhat glad that he changed his mind and let all four of them continue their journey to become Hunters. He somehow felt like they could actually pass despite being newcomers.

Once the ship reached the harbour, the quartet decided to continue their journey to the examination site now that they were a little closer to it. Gon wanted to have a last word with the captain before leaving, so he told the others to go ahead without him. Whilst waiting for Gon, Himeko, Kurapika and Leorio found a giant map of the town and started discussing possible routes they could take while looking out for any other applicants that may have a clue on where they have to head towards. As per usual, Kurapika and Leorio quickly found themselves arguing over which route to take while Himeko just quietly stared at the map, not knowing how to read one.

When Gon and the captain started their conversation, he felt like he had come across Gon before. It was a sense of deja vu, but he knew it wasn't possible since Gon was still very young. If it wasn't Gon he knew, he figured that he must have known someone related to Gon, and when Gon introduced himself, he found that he was right. The captain told Gon about meeting his father, Ging, on one of his adventures out on the sea and couldn't help but point out how similar they were. What stood out the most was how sharp both their instincts were. Although that was all the captain knew about Ging, Gon was more than happy with that amount of information. Hearing how much of a great man Ging really was, Gon was motivated to find his father even more now. He continued to listen to one or two stories about his father, and just that was enough to make Gon feel like he knew Ging a little better. The Captain sent him off by wishing him good luck for the exam, and also good luck on his quest to find Ging. Before Gon left, he also gave him a little hint to help him out and his friends out.

"I'm back!" Gon ran towards the trio after finishing his conversation with the captain, "The captain said we have to head to the lone Cedar tree. We'll find our guides there."

Kurapika and Leorio momentarily stopped arguing after hearing the information from Gon before staring back at the large map to locate the large tree. Kurapika pointed up at the left hand side corner at the illustration of a large, isolated tree. "There it is!"

"Wait a second," Leorio interrupted, "I received information that we have to catch the bus over there to get to the exam site," he informed them, pointing in the opposite direction. "The last bus is about to head out!"

Their differences in opinion got them thinking for a while. They all wanted to come to a mutual agreement, but Gon seemed to be stubborn about his decision while Leorio too trusted his own sources.

"I'm trusting the captain," Gon announced, before he started heading towards the tree, "I guess I'll see you all later then." He briefly said his goodbyes to everyone and headed down the path that was supposed to lead him to their destination according to the captain. The remaining three watched him leave without a word and wondered which way they should be heading. Himeko just smiled watching Gon walk off by himself. Gon's instincts were right last time, so she decided to stick with him for the time being. Besides, Gon spoke about wanting to pass the exam together with her and somehow she managed to trust his words. She still didn't know what it was about Gon, but he was just so easy to trust, and she felt like going with him was the right choice. Instead of thinking about it for too long, she just decided to go with her gut instincts.

"I'll trust Gon on this one. See ya around!" Himeko informed the two boys before she ran behind Gon until she caught up to him. It didn't take much to convince Kurapika either. He followed the two children without another word. He knew something was different about Gon, and he liked that about him. Just like Himeko, he easily managed to trust Gon despite having met him a few hours ago. In the end Leorio remained behind, watching the other three leave without him. He decided to head in the opposite direction towards the bus stop, trusting the information he got instead the information Gon received. He mumbled a couple of words, complaining about the three who distrusted him and walked off in the opposite direction before starting to snicker at the thought of them ending up in the middle of no where.

"Have you heard?" He heard a voice from an alleyway he walked past, where two men were talking to each other, "The bus was a decoy to trick first timers."

As if that wasn't enough, they were starting to mock the naive candidates who actually believed the information and got onto the previous buses that took them no where near the exam site. "Yeah, as if life is so easy that a bus will drive you everywhere!"

Hearing that the bus was just a cheap trick to fool first time applicants, it didn't take long for Leorio to change his mind and take a sharp U-turn. He looked into the distance until he finally spotted Gon, Himeko and Kurapika before running after them. "Wait up!" He shouted, hoping they would hear him and wait for him to catch up, "I'm coming with you."

Gon was the first person out of the three to look back after hearing Leorio's voice. He immediately stopped walking, seeing the out of breath Leorio sprinting towards them. Noticing that Gon had stopped, the other two stopped too and turned around. Seeing Leorio desperately run towards them caused a smirk to form on both of their faces. It was the _'I told you so'_ face, trying to rub in that they were both right for choosing to follow Gon while Leorio was wrong for trusting information he heard from a local.

"So you changed your mind?" Kurapika asked mockingly as Leorio finally caught up, panting heavily. "Did you forget to tell us something?"

"I thought you were going to take the bus!" Himeko joined in and started to tease him too, "Were all the seats taken or something?

Leorio continued to catch his breath, before he looked up at them. He saw their mocking gazes and occasional chuckles. "Does this seem funny to you two?"

"A little," Kurapika bluntly commented, making Gon and Himeko laugh in the process.

Leorio clenched his fist. "Wait until I catch you two!" He declared, getting ready to catch the three with his own hands.

"He is coming for us," Himeko laughed, before she slowly started to run down the path, followed by Gon and Kurapika. "Run!"

"Come back!" Leorio demanded as he chased after them.

"Catch us if you can," Kurapika playfully challenged him.

"Ooh, scary!" Himeko jokingly added, seeing how determined Leorio was to catch them. Kurapika and Gon continued to giggle at their silly jabs and eventually Leorio joined in, continuing to chase after them at the same time. It didn't take long for them to cover a large distance, time seemed to pass faster with everyone just laughing and having fun along their journey. Although the way to the cedar tree was quite far, it didn't feel far to them at all. Before they knew it, they reached a deserted village and started to slow down their pace. Not knowing whether anyone was hidden around the area, the quartet was quietly walking through the empty streets, hoping to find a clue on where they were and which way they should be heading.

Leorio stared hard at his surrounding, walking right at the back behind everyone else. Looking around, it didn't take long for him to start suspecting the two people that were guiding them. "Are you sure this is the right way? It might be a trap set up." The other three remained quiet to his question.

"We aren't alone here," Kurapika pointed out, taking a quick glance at one of the close-by alleyways. Leorio looked a little confused. The village was obviously deserted, there was no soul to be seen around. Suddenly, the four were greeted with loud music and small mass of villagers. Amongst them was a small, old lady who seemed to be the leader of the group.

"Are you kids ready for the quiz?" She asked. As soon as she finished her question, the parade behind her started hitting the drums and playing their trumpets, making loud music to announce and celebrate their arrival.

"Quiz?" The four travellers tilted their heads in-sync. They were stunned by the sudden appearance of this many villagers in this village that appeared to be abandoned. Not only that, the last thing they expected to do was take part in a quiz when they were obviously trying to find the guides living near the cedar tree to take them to the exam site.

"Let's start the Mind-Boggling-Two-choice-Quiz!" She announced loudly, and the parade behind her played loud music once again. The quartet stood still trying to process what was happening before their eyes. They hoped that eventually they would leave them alone and go bother someone else, but the villagers wouldn't budge, and neither would anyone try and explain what was going on. Hoping that someone might have a clue on what this quiz was all about, they looked at each other, wanting some answers to the questions clouding their minds.

"You know, I'm not the right person to say this, but I think we should have taken that right turn back there!" Himeko whispered, only loud enough for the other three to hear.

"Don't blame me, I wasn't the one leading us here," Leorio whispered back, hoping that either Gon or Kurapika who claimed they knew where they were going would start taking the blame for getting them lost.

"We were being followed," Kurapika informed the rest, interrupting Leorio's and Himeko's conversation. Hearing this, the other three looked back to see an unfamiliar man appear out of the dark alleyway he was hidden in.

"Well, I've been discovered," he casually shrugged while walking towards them, "if you don't mind, I'd like to take this quiz first!" He walked past them and asked the elder to give him the quiz, so she proceeded as requested.

"Your mother and your lover were held hostage, but you could only save one of them. Who would you save?" The elder's tone was very serious now compared to earlier. It dropped the mood around them. "Pick one if you would save your mother, pick two if you would save your lover." The cruel nature of her question put Gon, Kurapika, Leorio and Himeko off. She gave the man two option, and he could only choose between one of his significant people. The time limit he was given wasn't fair either, he only had a couple of seconds to choose his answer. The quartet's minds were going blank as they were trying to find a possible solution to this problem. However, they couldn't deny the fact that their significant other would be just as important as their mother. Being shocked by the kind of question he was asked, they were somewhat relieved that the stranger asked to go ahead of them so now they were prepared for just about anything. But they knew that they could've been asked the same question, and not knowing the answer to it, they would've also failed and had to surrender their chance to enter the exam this year.

"That's easy. I'll save my mother," the man answered with no second thoughts. Gon, Himeko and Kurapika just remained quiet, while Leorio clenched his teeth to hold back his anger.

The elder looked up at him. "Very well, you may proceed!" she announced, before letting him pass.

"How could that be the right answer?" Leorio began to shout. "How could you only save one of them?"

The man stopped walking and briefly turned back to look at Leorio who was throwing the tantrum. "Calm down, you just have to tell the old lady what she wants to hear." He shrugged, smirking as if his answer meant nothing to him. He didn't care about what the question actually meant, neither did he bother to even properly think about his answer. Yet, the elder still let him proceed without stopping him. His statement didn't help Leorio's anger any further. In fact, it made him even more furious. Both a mother and a lover were irreplaceable, you couldn't choose between any of them. It wasn't right to choose between two loved ones. He started shouting at the elder who, in turn, told him to keep quiet before she proceeded to give them a different question of the same cruel nature.

"If your son and your daughter were held hostage, and you can only save one of them, who would you choose?" A parent would rather die than abandon either of their children. It didn't matter whether it looked like one was favoured more than another, or tend to spoil their youngest child compared to the others, if it came down to life or death, a parent couldn't just choose to leave one child to die. Gon, Himeko and Kurapika started thinking hard about it while Leorio continued his angry rant at the back.

"Like hell I'd abandon any of them. I'd rather die than abandon them!" He continued to shout. "There is no need for me to answer you!"

That was when Himeko finally realised the answer. There was no real answer to the question, neither did the elder specify that they had to choose an answer. The time limit was added to put pressure on them, and even if there was a real time limit, the elder did not constantly ask them to give her answer. The question was meant to be answered with silence and there was no reason for them to choose an option out of the two.

She looked over at Kurapika and Gon. Both of them looked relatively calm; at least a lot calmer than Leorio. Out of the two, Kurapika looked like he had something figured out already. It didn't surprise her too much, if she managed to solve the question then Kurapika would have come up with an answer long before she did. Gon on the other hand looked like he was still giving it some deep thoughts. He was quietly thinking about it, so even if he didn't manage to think of the answer it would be fine as long as he doesn't answer before the time was up. She just worried about Leorio, but she couldn't exactly blame him for feeling so frustrated either.

"I don't care that you are an elder, if I can't pass without answering the question I will force my way through!" Leorio declared as he took out his small pocket knife.

"_Crap, he's going to get us all disqualified!"_

However, before Himeko or Kurapika could utter a word, the elder silenced them. "If you know the answer, keep it to yourself. You are not to help each other!"

Himeko defeatedly looked at Kurapika, hoping that he could think of a way to stop Leorio from doing something reckless. The fact that Leorio was this short tempered wasn't much of a help either. It clouded his ability to think straight in such a situation.

"_Come on Leorio, think!" _Kurapika could only hope for the best. But when he saw Leorio trying to force his way through, he couldn't stand still anymore. Seeing that Himeko already knew the answer, and that Gon was still quietly pondering about it, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He stepped forth, blocking Leorio's path.

"Move out of the way Kurapika, I want to teach this old hag some manners!"

Kurapika didn't move though, he just had to buy some time. He took out his own weapons in case Leorio were to attack. Suddenly, a loud gong echoed through the streets, and announced the end of the quiz. Kurapika and Himeko who were holding their breath all this time, worrying whether Leorio would accidentally say something that they would all regret, finally felt like they could breathe again.

"There is no need, we passed the quiz!" Himeko made an announcement, before falling to the ground. Her knees were starting to feel weak after all the commotion, and for a moment she started to believe that she came all this way for nothing and had to return without a license this year. "_I seriously thought he was going to blow it for everyone!"_

Leorio seemed a little confused by those relieved looks on Himeko and Kurapika's faces; they haven't given their answers either. Kurapika tried to calm him down and give him a brief explanation of what was going on. "She's right, we weren't supposed to answer. We were supposed to answer with silence."

"That's right, you all passed the quiz," The elder announced before the parade behind her started playing again to congratulate them.

"_If those idiots play those annoying instruments once again, I seriously don't think I can hold myself back anymore!"_ Himeko thought, annoyed at the parade's bad playing. The elder stood up and opened a door of one of the run down buildings they were standing next to. It was a door leading to a pitch black tunnel, and there was no light to be seen, suggesting that the tunnel was fairly long.

But one thing was still lingering on Leorio's mind. "So what about the man who you let pass?"

"He's probably dead. The path ahead was a trap," Kurapika deduced, remembering how he managed to hear a faint scream while everyone else was still busy thinking about the question. He put two and two together and concluded that the scream must have belonged to the man who went ahead after giving the elder his answer. But they still looked at the elder, hoping to confirm Kurapika's theory.

"You're right. There was no path ahead. This tunnel is the path that leads you to the navigators house," she explained, confirming Kurapika's deduction. "As you four passed, you may proceed."

When Kurapika, Himeko and Leorio got ready to go ahead, they noticed someone was missing from the group. They looked back to see Gon still in thoughts and wondered whether he actually realised that the quiz was long over. He dropped down on the floor out of frustration, scratching his head. "Ahh, I can't seem to figure it out!"

Himeko rushed to him, helping him back on his feet. "Gon, the quiz is over," she informed him, "we all passed!"

"I know. But if I ever get into a situation like that, I wouldn't know what to do!"

Gon had a good point, and it made the others think too. If they had a choice between abandoning their son or their daughter, or any two of their loved ones, would they be able to choose between one of them, would they choose not to save either of them, or would they decide to go down with the two of them? Although the quiz was over, the nature of the question still made their hearts sink. At this point, they had no choice but to proceed. They travelled this far to participate in the Hunter exam, and they couldn't afford to get side tracked. After thanking the elder one last time, the quartet departed and left to head through the long tunnel and whatever challenges were waiting for them at the end of it. The elder watched the four leave with a small smile on her face, recalling how upset and angry they got when asked the question. Leorio's reaction especially made her glad to have met these four, and she sincerely hoped for them to pass the exam.

The tunnel was longer than they expected. For a couple of hours it seemed like they were getting no where, but they eventually managed to see some light in the distance. With the unexpected storm on the sea, and the strange quiz back in the abandoned village, all four of them have somewhat concluded that anything could happen on their way through the tunnel. Although they kept their guards up throughout the way, nothing happened in the tunnel. The journey through the tunnel ended with a few short talks here and there, and a couple encouraging speeches to keep everyone, especially Leorio going. At the end of the day, they all tried to convince each other that they'll make it out of the tunnel sooner or later.

The last time everyone checked, it was only noon when they first entered the tunnel but now that they arrived at the exit they were greeted by the moonlight. It surprised them a little to think how much they must have walked all this time, but nonetheless everyone was trying to find their way to the old, cedar tree where they would be meeting their guides. The first obstacle for now was to try and find a way to cross the large lake in front of them. Though Gon tried to suggest that swimming over was still an option, Leorio was the first one to reject his idea by pointing out how big the lake really was. This was one of the first times Kurapika found himself agreeing with Leorio as he explained how dangerous swimming across an unknown lake at night was. Himeko decided to add the cherry on top by informing the boys that she didn't know how to swim and would most probably drown in the first few seconds of being in the water.

Once the idea of swimming over was scrapped completely, the four split up to find maybe a small boat or even a path leading around the lake. After twenty minutes of searching around, Kurapika managed to find a boat that was still somewhat in tact and safe to use. Whilst Himeko wasn't so fond of the idea of crossing the lake with a boat they found lying around in the middle of no where, she was convinced that it would be much faster rowing across the lake than walking all the way around it. Gon was the first one to get in and helped Himeko enter the shaking boat. Kurapika followed and Leorio pushed the boat off the shore before joining everyone.

Using four paddles they found in the boat, they all started to row at a slow and steady pace. Once they were about half way across the lake, Leorio gave in and decided to take a rest after complaining how long it was taking to get across.

"Man, this is going to take us forever!" He ranted, seeing how Gon and Kurapika who were sat across him were still rowing without breaking a sweat. He turned to see that Himeko, who was sitting next to him was still going too. _"How do they do this?" _He thought to himself, impressed by their stamina. _"If everyone at the Hunter exam is this skilled, then I must step up my game! I can't fall behind!"_

Leorio's thoughts were shortly interrupted as the boat came to a sudden halt. He looked up to see that Gon and Kurapika have stopped rowing and were staring up at something with wide eyes, leaving Himeko as the only one to still row. Eventually she too noticed that everyone but her has stopped rowing and looked up at the two boys sitting opposite her to see what was wrong. Gon and Kurapika were speechlessly looking up at something behind her, and she turned to look at Leorio to see whether he had an idea of what was going on. Leorio was as clueless as her, so the two simultaneously turned back to check what was going on. Their mouths opened wide as they saw a giant sea snake that appeared behind them.

"Everyone, hold still!" Leorio whispered over to the others, hoping that if they didn't produce a sound then the sea snake would just leave. Gon, Kurapika and Himeko followed his instructions, not actually knowing whether that would work. Although it was a ridiculous idea, the sea snake was still standing still, staring back at them and not attacking. Staring at such an intimidating creature though made it seem like a big lump was stuck in Himeko's throat. She tried to discreetly swallow her own saliva to make the lump move down, but ended up choking. Her sudden coughing fit caused the beast's attention turn towards her, leaving the other three mentally face-palming. "Goddamnit Kou!" Leorio cursed, before snatching her paddle and started rowing for his life, leaving the sea creature in his dust.

Thanks to Leorio's efforts alone, the quartet managed to safely reach the shore before Himeko even finished her coughing fit. While Leorio literally jumped out of the boat onto the sand, swearing that he'll never get on another boat again, Gon sat beside Himeko patting her back to try and stop her from coughing any further. While everyone was preoccupied with something, Kurapika was left trying to figure out the way to the cedar tree.

It didn't take him too long to spot a lone tree sticking out in the distance. He pointed at a path that lead them through a forest, "there it is, we have to head that way." With him leading the way into the woods, he was followed by Gon, Himeko and last but not least, Leorio right at the back. What they didn't notice on their way in though was a wooden sign lying in one of the bushes. _'Warning - Magical Creatures,'_ it read.

The path they ended up taking was shorter than they expected, and they managed to arrive by the cedar tree with no complications. Just as the captain and elder told them, there was a little, wooden hut situated underneath the large tree where the couple was said to be living. There were no other houses in the area, so they assumed that this must have been the correct location. Kurapika noticed that the front door was already open, so he slowly opened it, "Excuse me, we are coming in."

As he opened the door though, the quartet were stunned to see the sudden turn of events. In front of them was a injured man lying on the ground, along with a young woman who was held captive by a large golden-yellow beast.; a Kiriko to be precise.

"Please, save my wife," the man managed to utter before he collapsed on the floor. The Kiriko wasted no time to smash the nearby window and make an escape through it along with the young woman, and seeing this, Gon, Kurapika and Himeko prepared to chase after it. Leorio however knelt down beside the injured man and opened up the black suitcase he had been carrying along all this time.

"I'll take care of his wounds, you three chase after the beast!" Leorio ordered, taking out a couple of bottles and bandages to start aiding the man's injuries. Knowing that he was in safe hands with him, the remaining three followed the beast out of the window and followed it into the forest where it was heading with the woman. Gon was significantly faster than the other two and decided to run ahead, while Himeko and Kurapika followed not too far behind him. As the Kiriko climbed a tree and started to make it's escape deeper into the woods, jumping from tree to tree, Gon was close on its case and followed. It didn't take Gon too long to catch up with the beast, and he used the opportunity to give it a good beating on the head with the fishing rod he was carrying around, causing it to drop the woman and continue running. Gon ran after it, knowing that either Kurapika or Himeko could catch the woman and take care of her. Luckily, she was caught by Kurapika and set to the ground. She looked a little pale, but Kurapika concluded that it was nothing serious which set Himeko's mind at peace.

"I'll take care of her," Kurapika told her, "go ahead and help Gon."

"Okay. I'll be back," she nodded, before she ran after Gon. She was able to picked up her pace now that she was by herself, heading where Gon was headed. He was jumping from tree to tree while chasing the beast, so it was hard to follow them from the ground, "_Where is he?" _She wondered, looking around the darkness. She was quite impressed by the fact that Gon was able to chase the Kiriko at this time of day. Not only was it pitch black, they were also in a forest, the Kiriko's natural habitat.

_Thud._

Himeko slowed down when she heard something fall from above and instinctively took a few of steps back to dodge whatever it was. It was the beast that Gon was chasing all this time, but Gon was no where to be seen. She was pretty sure that he was right behind the beast, so where was he? He managed to keep up with it all this time, so she found it hard to believe that Gon would have just lost his way through the forest. She stared hard at the Kiriko, noting its every move, but then she finally noticed it.

"You're not the beast Gon was chasing," she said, making the beast look at her in surprise. She knew that these magical beasts were smart, and earlier on she even heard it talking to Gon. The beast was capable of speaking, but chose not to deny her accusations. She took the beast's silence as a sign that she was correct. "So, I am right after all!" The beast looked a little dumbfounded by her comment, so she continued explain her deduction. "Well, Gon hit the beast he was chasing with his fishing rod but you don't have that bruise on your head."

"That's all?" The Kiriko asked, knowing that there was a whole lot more to her deduction than just the bruise.

"This is a test too, isn't it?" She questioned it. It all made sense when she thought of it that way. The ship was a screening, the elder's quiz back at the village was also a test, so all this time it felt like the exam has began for them before they've even reached the site. Their journey to the exam site felt like a selection process, and only a handful of aspiring hunters would have what it needed to become an official candidate. Thinking about it that way, there was a great chance for this to be a test too. "A young couple was living alone near a forest with magical beasts, and for all these years they were completely fine. No beast, no kidnapping, no nothing, but the very day us four decided to come by they were attacked. Why not us who were wandering through the forest for an hour? We were an easier target, why go through the trouble of kidnapping the young woman if you knew that there were visitors and risk being caught? I'm sure you are able to sense the smell of humans from far away so you were probably able to sense us coming. I don't believe it's all just a coincidence, you definitely planned this stunt!"

The Kiriko remained quiet, listening to Himeko's reasoning and finally smiled at her once she was done. "That deduction was quite impressive, you are right us Kirikos were able to smell you once you came out of that tunnel. While you four were busy finding your way through the forest, we were able to prepare our plan. Why don't we head back? I'm sure your friends are back at the hut too by now."

Himeko gave the Kiriko a firm nod, and followed it from a safe distance just in case. She believed that in the kind of world they were living in, she could never be too careful around people; especially strangers. The Kiriko told her that they would be heading down a shortcut instead of taking a long route. While walking though, she remained quiet not wanting to spark a conversation with a complete stranger. The Kiriko respected her privacy, but there was something on its mind the whole time.

"You smell a little different compared to the other three," the Kiriko pointed out. "When you all first arrived here, I could only smell three humans, while the fourth one smelled odd."

"Okay, I'll admit it. I haven't showered since I left for the Hunter exam two days ago, but there is no need for you to over-exaggerate!"

"It's not that, you smell like a human but at the same time there is another faint smell lingering around you," it started to think very hard about what the scent was, "I can't seem to think of what it is though."

"Can we please stop talking about body odour? It's making me a little uncomfortable."

The Kiriko politely agreed and continued leading the way towards the hut. Once the two arrived, they saw that the three boys were already there, along with the woman who was safe and sound, the man who was bandaged and another Kiriko. "Very well. Now that we are all here, we shall proceed," the other Kiriko announced, at their arrival.

"You're all family, aren't you?" Gon asked before the Kiriko could begin speaking. Leorio, Himeko and Kurapika seemed surprised, wondering how Gon managed to jump to that conclusion so fast.

"How can you tell, Gon?" Kurapika asked curiously.

"They all have a similar smell."

_"Smell? Gon is weird indeed," _They all thought dumbfounded by his unexpected response. Gon was able to distinguish the differences between the beasts with ease. He noticed the difference between the voices of the Kiriko that took off with the woman and the Kiriko that he chased out. To him, one of their voices sounded a bit more high pitched than the other, while everyone else didn't seem to notice a difference. They both looked and sounded the same. The Kirikos laughed in amusement and praised him for being observant, and pointed out that no one has ever been able to distinguish between them. Although the other three tried their hardest to hear a difference between their voices, they just couldn't.

Kurapika was praised for his vast knowledge. He was able to identify strange tattoos on the woman's hands and face, and recalled them being part of a tribe's culture. As she decided to get the tattoos, she also swore to remain unmarried for the rest of her life. Seeing this, Kurapika managed to conclude that the couple had been lying, and that they weren't a couple at all. Instead, the were actually siblings, and the children of the two Kirikos.

Although Leorio wasn't able to immediately figure out what was going on, he was still praised for his kindness and remaining behind to treat the wounds of the injured. He also remained behind in the hut with him until everyone else returned just in case there were more magical beasts lurking around.

In the end it turned out that all four Kiriko's were actually the guides, and after passing their test, they agreed to finally take them over to their destination. The Kiriko's each took one of the four and flew across the night sky. It was a long night for all of them, and as the night passed, they arrived. Three of them flew back while the son, who took the form of a human once again guided them to the building where the Hunter exam was meant to be happening.

"It was nice meeting you. Take care and good luck!" He said and after they thanked him, he left the room. While Himeko, Kurapika and Leorio went in first, Gon told them to go ahead while he followed the Kiriko and personally thanked him for leading them to the exam site. Although he was just doing his job, Gon's words somehow managed to make him happy. Once Gon returned, the four decided to take a seat and wait patiently. While the elevator was going down, Leorio and Kurapika couldn't help but start bickering as per usual. While Kurapika argued that pride was more important for a Hunter, Leorio opposed him and went for money. Gon and Himeko were watching quietly, hoping not to get involved in the heated argument.

"Gon, Kou, what is more important?" Leorio ended up dragging the kids in it, "It's money, right?"

"It's honour, don't you two agree?" Kurapika asked, hoping that the two wouldn't be as greedy as Leorio.

Gon helplessly looked at Himeko for help, not wanting to choose between two of his friends.

Himeko just sighed irritatedly, "If you don't want a piece of my mind, which you don't, you would sit back down right now and keep quiet until this elevator reaches the bottom floor."

Seeing that the young girl was very close to snapping at them and their pointless argument, Kurapika managed to calm himself down before taking his seat. He still didn't agree with Leorio, but that didn't matter right now. Now that the argument was over, Leorio sat down quietly too still sticking to his own opinion like Kurapika. Gon looked at Himeko who seemed exhausted after that long day of travelling. Her eyes were shut, and she used the opportunity to try and rest for as long as she could until the elevator stopped.

"You could have said that a bit nicely," Gon pointed out, rubbing the back of his neck while sheepishly flashing a nervous smile in the hopes that she doesn't snap at him too.

Himeko opened her eyes and looked at Gon who was sitting opposite her. "What are you talking about? That _was_ me being nice," she bluntly admitted, making the trio of boys just stare at her dumfounded. "What? Did I say something wrong?"

"Nothing…" they uttered quietly and looked away, not wanting to hear a_ 'piece of her mind'_. Although she wasn't the most social person when they first met, they got the impression that she could speak her mind if she wanted to.

The elevator eventually reached the bottom floor, and after a loud chime, the double door opened. The quartet stepped out one by one into a underground waiting area, and it seemed like they weren't the only ones there. In fact, they seemed to be some of the last ones to arrive at the place. There was a big crowd of candidates already, and most of them didn't seem welcoming at all. They were all glaring daggers at the four newcomers, before continuing with whatever they were doing. There was a competitive vibe in the air, and no one seemed like they wanted to get along. After all, not everyone of them could pass the exam. Gon, Kurapika, Himeko and Leorio proceeded to enter and received their badges. They then carefully attached the badges to their clothes, waiting to receive their next instructions.

_Leorio - #403_

_Kurapika - #404_

_Gon - #405_

_Himeko - #406_


	4. The Marathon

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 3**

_The Marathon_

...

The quartet cautiously moved through the crowd, trying not to attract any unwanted attention. Most of the candidates didn't look friendly at all, and although none of the men on the ship looked friendly, these candidates were not to mess with. They've come a long way, and just getting to the exam site was packed with challenges so assuming that all the four hundred candidates that made it this far were able to pass all the challenges on the way, they were a lot stronger than those guys who were all just big talk. There was that judging atmosphere again, and the four could easily sense how some applicants kept their eyes on them, possibly even targeting the newcomers. Two twelve year olds, a pretty boy and a thin, weakly looking man were bound to get attention after all.

They stopped walking when they were approached by a rather chubby and short looking man, with brown hair and a big nose. His badge read #16, meaning that he must have been one of the first ones to arrive. They didn't know whether he came this far all by himself, or whether he travelled in a group like they did, but knowing that he was one of the early birds gave them all mixed feelings. He didn't exactly look like the fittest person out of the crowd, neither did he look particularly strong or smart for that matter.

"My name is Tonpa," he introduced himself in a friendly manner. "I've never seen you around before, you four must be first timers."

"I'm Gon!" Gon immediately beamed before introducing himself, trying to make acquaintances with him. "How did you know that we are first timers?"

"This is the thirty-sixth time I'm going to take the exam," Tonpa grinned proudly, as if that was something to be proud of.

"Thirty-sixth time?!" The four exclaimed in disbelief. With wide eyes and a fully open mouth, the four stared at Tonpa not wanting to believe their ears. If failing once or twice wasn't enough, this guy was willing to try again for thirty-six times.

"_That's some determination he got…" _Kurapika thought, imagining how more than half the candidates there would stop bothering after just half a dozen times.

_"Thirty-six_ _times?!" _Leorio exclaimed in surprise_ "This guy is nuts!"_

"_Doesn't this guy have anything better to do…"_ Himeko asked herself, wondering where all that confidence actually came from. If she were to tell everyone that she had to take that exam over three times she would be pretty ashamed of herself. Even failing once would give her a bad taste in her mouth.

"That's besides the point. You must all be thirsty making your way here," he suddenly changed the subject, while taking out a couple of juice cans out of the dark brown side bag he was carrying around. "Let's have a toast to our new friendship!" He passed the cans around, opened his own and waited for everyone else to follow his example. _"Suckers!" _He thought, looking at the naive Gon happily opening the can of juice he offered them without hesitation, and Leorio eventually following Gon's example with no second thought.

Himeko was left staring hard at the bright, yellow writing on her can. "_Lemonade…" _She wasn't a big fan of anything with lemons in it. She despised the sweet-sour taste it produced on her taste buds, whether it was a drink, sweet or pastry. _"Besides, are we really supposed to trust someone so easily? Everyone here looks like an asshole!"_ There was that saying passed onto children from their parents to not trust strangers or accept anything from them in case it was drugged with something. Apparently Gon wasn't too aware of it. It made Himeko wonder what kind of paradise he was brought up in, seeing him trust practically everyone he meets in an instant. Apart from her who still held an unopened can in her hand, not caring whether it would be considered rude or not, everyone else opened their cans and Gon was the first one to start drinking the juice. However, to everyone's surprise Gon spat the juice out right away which alarmed the rest. Gon was be way too polite to spit the juice out despite how bad it tasted, so something must have been wrong with it.

"What's wrong Gon?" Himeko asked, wondering what might have triggered his reaction, "Are you okay?"

"The juice tastes a little funny," he informed everyone around him, still feeling apologetic to Tonpa for spitting out the juice he gave to him, "I'm really sorry, Tonpa."

Kurapika didn't hesitate to spill out the juice in front of Tonpa, making him just stare at the juice flowing out onto the floor in front of him. Himeko was somewhat glad that she wasn't the only paranoid one in the group, she felt like she was overreacting after seeing Kurapika open the juice too. While Gon and Leorio seemed to lack that specific skill, she felt like Kurapika knew exactly who he could trust and who he should avoid. At least they were on the same page when it came to Tonpa; he was way too friendly to the newcomers. Leorio also spat out the juice right away knowing that there was something wrong with it.

"I'm really sorry about that, it might have expired," he bowed apologetically, "I'm really sorry once again."

"Good thing none of us drank it," Leorio added, sighing in relief. If they got an upset stomach before the exams even started, then they would have automatically failed. Himeko turned her can around, and looked at the expiry date written at the bottom of the can. It still had nearly seven months to go, so she doubted that Gon's drink would be any different. Not just that, even if it was for a split second, she noticed a slight look of disappointment on Tonpa's face when Gon said it tasted weird. He didn't seem to expect this sudden turn of events, and he didn't seem to like it either.

"_My juice isn't expired, so maybe…"_ she thought, as she looked at Gon besides her. She then nodded to herself, "_Detective Kou is on the case!" _Trying not to make a scene, she lightly tapped on Gon's shoulder, "Gon, can I see your juice can?" She asked, whispering so no one else could hear her.

He looked at the now empty can in his hand and wondered why she would want an empty can. Nonetheless, he passed it over to her, "Here."

"Thanks," she smiled at him before she turned over Gon's can and looked at the expiry date on the bottom of it. Now that everything started to add together she wasn't so surprised about the date at the bottom. It was still good to drink for another six months. The unusual warm welcome, the overly friendly peace offering and the sudden change in facial expression, _"so, I was right after all!" _She suddenly remembered Gon telling her about growing up on Whale Island. He was able to identify different medicinal herbs and distinguishing good ones from bad ones just by the smell of it, and it was evident by the fact that he was able to help the sick men around on the ship. She drew to the conclusion that Tonpa probably tampered with the juice beforehand. Tonpa and tampered sounded pretty similar as words, but that wasn't much evidence for her to prove her case. He might have added something like a weak poison that would take them out until the first phase was done. Probably nothing too harmful, but she couldn't be sure with these people around her. They seemed like they were willing to go through all possible measures to fail other candidates. "Here, this one is still unexpired and I haven't opened it yet either," Himeko said as she threw her can back to Tonpa, who managed to catch it, "you can have it back. I don't like lemonade."

Tonpa was surprised that Gon managed to figure out that something was wrong with the juice. He quietly looked around at all the other rookies; he was both impressed and shocked by the fact that they were all able to turn down the juice other than one boy who the juice didn't affect at all. He left Gon and his friends alone, and moved through the crowd, eventually completely disappearing in it. Their discovery of the tampered drinks spoiled his mood, and all he could do was hope to find a gullible rookie. But so far, he hasn't had much fun yet and it surprised him. By now he should be laughing at the many applicants that were tricked by him, but he wasn't. He figured that this was going to be a challenging year at the Hunter's exam.

"Hey, you!" Tonpa was suddenly stopped by a voice he recalled hearing before. It was #99, a little boy with messy silver hair, a dark purple turtle neck underneath a loose V neck shirt and shorts. "Can I have more of that juice you gave me earlier?" It was one of the rookies that drank the juice earlier on, but unlike the others he didn't show any effect. It was truly strange, a laxative that strong should have taken effect on such a little guy in a matter of minutes, but it has been hours since he last drank the juice.

"Um, let's see. I have some lemonade," Tonpa gave him the unopened can of lemonade that Himeko returned, but he still didn't seem satisfied. In the end, Tonpa handed him a couple of cans to make him go away. He watched the boy consume the juice without showing any effect and was confused. He knew the laxative in it should have taken effect by now, but why didn't it?

Sensing that Tonpa was confused, the boy suddenly stopped walking and turned back to look at him. "If you are wondering, I'm immune to poison," the boy informed him, his lips forming a confident smirk. He then continued to walk off into the crowd leaving Tonpa awestruck. Tonpa was taken off guard by the boy's eyes. That look was definitely not normal for a boy his age. It was the look of a cold hearted killer.

"Who in the world is that kid?" He gulped, remembering the look in his eyes. Trying to forget it, he continued to walk through the crowd of applicants to find his next victim.

Meanwhile, Gon, Kurapika, Himeko and Leorio all split up to gather some more information about the situation. Himeko was doing just that, sorting everyone into three categories. So far, the category of _'don't waste your time on them'_ had more people in it than the other categories _'you should look out for them'_ and _'stay away from them'._ The second category only had Gon, Kurapika and Leorio in it for the time being, but the last group had no one. She didn't know how to feel about that though, she knew that someone dangerous was bound to appear sooner or later, especially at a place like that. But the thought of not knowing who to avoid was absolutely terrifying. Kurapika soon went on to join her after wondering around for a while.

"So, you noticed it too, Kou-chan?" He asked her, snapping her out of her thought bubble. "Tonpa's juice, you noticed there was something wrong with it too, right? You gave it back not because you didn't like lemonade, but because you knew it had something in it."

It didn't surprise her at all, Kurapika was sharp when it came to these things. But there was something that bothered her all this time. "I told you to call me Kou, not Kou-chan," she sighed. Until now, she allowed Gon to call her by her nickname to which he happily agreed. Leorio still called her Kou instead of Himeko despite her jokingly telling him that he didn't get her permission to call her that. In response to that, Leorio would usually tell her to call him Leorio-san, or Leorio-sama. Kurapika on the other hand was just plain awkward. He called her by her nickname she considered casual, yet formally added an honorific to it.

"Ah, sorry," he laughed awkwardly, "I just can't seem to get used to it."

"K-o-u. Kou!" Himeko slowly started spelling out her own name. "It's easy."

"Kou," Kurapika repeated after her.

"Yes, what is it Kurapika? I can call you that right? I mean without honorifics?"

"Yeah, sure," he smiled back at her reassuringly.

"Remember what Gon told us about Whale island? If he thinks the taste is weird, then something must be wrong. His juice wasn't expired either."

Kurapika wholeheartedly agreed, "his face seemed to have changed when Gon spat the juice out, as if he didn't expect it."

_"So he saw that too,"_ she thought to herself, knowing that she wasn't just imagining things. "What do you think was in there?"

"Maybe something like a weak laxative that would keep us out for a week," he concluded. "Either way, we have to be careful. I'm sure he's not the only one who is targeting rookies. I've got a feeling that there are some eyes on us. Gon and Leorio still haven't got a clue of what happened so we have to try and look out for those two too. Knowing Leorio, he would throw a fit if he discovers that the juice had been tampered with."

"You have a point there. We shouldn't create a scene, especially with people like them walking around," Himeko pointed at a tall, slim, man, #44. He looked sickly pale and had bright red hair. His left cheek had a red star on it while the right one had a green tear drop drawn on it. All he was doing was walking around the waiting area, but he looked depraved of something. He looked hungry; hungry to murder someone. "I've never really liked clowns, and he isn't helping me get over my fear."

Kurapika and Himeko continued to watch the man closely. Suddenly, another man bumped into him. #44 stopped, but the other man continued walking without looking back. #44 waited for an apology, but when he didn't get one, he gathered the crowd he called his audience and magically turned the man's arms into cherry blossoms. The man fell on the ground screaming in pain, his hands slowly fading away while #44 simply walked off. Kurapika and Himeko as well as some of the other examinees witnessed the scene in horror.

"_Whatever he is, clown or magician, I just hope I don't end up like that…" _Himeko gulped, watching the stranger walk away and eventually disappear into the crowd. The _'stay away from them' _category finally earned itself its first member, and she wasn't too pleased about it.

"We should avoid him at all cost," Kurapika stated, to which Himeko could just nod quietly. He was one opponent they didn't want to face. "Let's just head back to the others."

As soon as the pair went back to Gon and Leorio, the examiner finally appeared and ordered for the doors to be locked, announcing that the selection process was officially over. The tall, slim man wearing a dark suit looked at the four-hundred and six candidates in front of him. His V shaped face was rather plain, and the only thing that really stood out was his lavender coloured hair, curled at the ends and his curly mustache. "My name is Satotz," he introduced himself, "I'm your examiner for the first phase. Now, I want you all to follow me." As soon as he finished his sentence, he turned around and started marching. The examinees too all started to walk behind him, down the never ending tunnel.

After a while Satotz suddenly decided to pick up his pace after glancing back at how the candidates were coping with him. Though they were surprised by the sudden gain in speed, it didn't exactly bother them that much. They also started to jog along, trying not to lose sight of the examiner. Gon, Himeko, Kurapika and Leorio remained together and jogged in a line next to each other. One hour past, two hours past; looking back, some of the examinees have stopped running and dropped out. A lot of the examinees were still going, running behind Satotz who didn't break a single sweat. Compared to him, Leorio was starting to falter and slow down. After all, at the rate Satotz was going, some of the examinees were starting to wonder whether he was actually human.

Leorio looked back once he heard the sound of wheels rolling against the concrete floor. It was #99, the same boy who approached Tonpa a while back asking for more juice. "Hey brat, get off your skateboard and start running. That's cheating!" Leorio shouted and #99's eyes turned to him.

"Well, we were just told to follow him," Gon pointed out, trying to defend the silver-haired boy. "He didn't really mention that we had to follow him by foot."

Feeling slightly betrayed by Gon, Leorio continued to raise his voice at them. "Whose side are you on Gon? Kou, help me out here!" He asked, turning to Himeko. After all, Kurapika would just find this whole argument too childish to get involved in, so maybe the surprisingly mature child would take his side even if it's out of pity.

"Leave me out of this!" Himeko didn't have the time, or energy to take part in a pointless argument. "Besides, Gon has a point."

"Are you brats all ganging up on me, just because you are all the same age?"

"I'm just pointing out the obvious," she shrugged, "don't shoot the messenger, Leorio."

"It's Leorio-san to you, brat!"

"Please stop talking already!" While Himeko and Leorio were busy arguing over nothing, #99's gaze turned to Gon who was just watching the argument in amusement. He then looked over at Himeko, who was now ignoring Leorio's constant bickering. He was curious, two children his age managed to make it this far. For him it was no big deal at all, but that was because of his special family reasons. Anyone else his age shouldn't be good enough to come this far to the first phase. Although Himeko didn't look so approachable, Gon on the contrary gave him a warm, friendly smile. He couldn't continue containing his curiosity anymore.

"Yo," he greeted them directly this time, although it was mostly aimed at Gon. "How old are you?"

Himeko who was done listening to Leorio's rant, turned her attention to him. She then looked at Gon, knowing he would answer and waited for it. "We are both twelve," he answered his questions just like Himeko predicted.

_"They are both the same age as me,"_ #99 thought before sighing. He did an impressive flip with his skateboard and decided to run with Gon and Himeko while carrying his skateboard.

Gon was obviously impressed by his skateboard trick, "Wow, that was so cool!" He exclaimed in awe. "I'm Gon by the way."

#99 looked at him and smiled, "I'm Killua," he said, introducing himself in return. Killua then looked at the quiet Himeko, waiting for her to introduce herself. She didn't exactly come off as a shy person, but she tried hard to look unapproachable, it was somehow starting to irritate him. Either way, he wasn't entirely interested in her anyway. He just asked her for her age out of courtesy since he was already asking Gon for his.

Seeing how Himeko wasn't going to answer anytime soon, Gon decided to take that responsibility once again. "This is Himeko," he told Killua, "but you can just call her Kou!"

"Geez Gon," she let out an exasperated sigh, "you should really ask the owner of the name for permission before allowing others to call them by their nickname!"

"Ah, sorry Kou," Gon apologised, not realising that he actually offended her while introducing her to Killua. "I'll try and keep in it mind next time."

However, Himeko wasn't the one who was actually offended, Killua looked pretty annoyed at her attitude. She sounded more pretentious than she looked. This was probably what they meant by 'getting off the wrong foot'. "Am I not allowed to call you that then?"

This time around, she looked straight at him and decided to answer the question herself, "no, don't worry," she said, "I was just trying to mess with Gon." Despite her saying this, Killua got the impression that she only said this to end the conversation then and there. She didn't look interested in making new acquaintances, which made him question how she became this close with Gon in the first place, or whether she was only using him to get far in the exam. Nonetheless, he got the idea from the way she glanced at him. She wasn't trying to mess with Gon, she just didn't want any other stranger to call her by her affectionate nickname.

_"Pretentious wrench,"_ he muttered quietly. It wasn't loud enough for anyone else to hear, but that moment Himeko managed to read his lips. She has heard that one before a lot, so she shrugged it off. People come and go, they could think whatever they want about her, she didn't care. She narrowed her eyes at him, informing him that she got that message before focusing her attention back ahead.

"That's not very nice Kou!" Gon whined after hearing that comment of her trying to mess with him. Of course, he didn't actually understand that it was something she said to cover up what was directed at Killua earlier.

"I never said I'm nice," she pointed out much to his surprise, "you came to that assumption yourself." Although Gon didn't expect that response, she had a fair point. He was the one who approached her first, and convinced her to join him. But he was pretty sure that this rude persona was just something she did to avoid having to talk to people, and make them stop bothering them. She had a heart, she just chose not to show it.

"How much longer do we have to run?" Leorio who was now struggling to keep up with them interrupted their conversation. He was clearly sweating and out of breath, breathing heavily to try and keep running. Looking back, a lot of candidates dropped out already. They've been running for around three hours now and it had been approximately sixty kilometres, maybe even more than that. He just hoped that they could stop running sometime soon because he seriously doubted that he could keep up any longer.

"Just hang on a little longer Leorio," Kurapika tried to encourage him. However, even he didn't know how long the tunnel was. In fact, the thought of not knowing how much you have to run is part of the challenge, or that was what Kurapika thought. It wasn't just a physically straining exercise, but it also started to take a toll on their mental state. The stories he heard about the Hunter exams were true after all then; some candidates were left with just one leg, one arm, dead, or even went fully insane due to the stress. Another couple kilometres was all Leorio could take. He finally reached his limit and couldn't take another step forward. Seeing him collapse all of the sudden made everyone else come to a halt too.

"You can go on ahead," Leorio instructed them as he decided to take a break on the floor, "I'll catch up soon." He couldn't help but feel guilty seeing everyone stop for his sake. He was slowing them down, a dead weight and they were all clearly a lot more physically capable than him. The guilt of them failing the exam because of him would haunt him for the rest of his life.

"Kou, let's help him up!" Kurapika said, before he ran up to Leorio to help him. Himeko looked back at Gon and Killua, and then at the disappearing crowd at the front, but she decided to go with Kurapika to help Leorio for some odd reason. It took her a while to understand, but she was under the impression that Leorio too had some reason to be taking the Hunter exam himself. He was obviously struggling right from the start, but he just kept going trying to keep up with everyone else. She found it strange, he shouldn't have lasted even this long in her opinion, but he somehow managed to do so. Although it was hard for her to admit this, she somehow found herself respecting him for this. Besides, they've been together for two days now, since the very start, so it would be strange for them to suddenly leave him behind. It would make her feel guilty, and even if she managed to get the license in the end, she wouldn't be satisfied with herself after abandoning someone who thought of her so highly. She didn't want to associate herself with many people, but she also had pride and some self respect.

Gon was also about to join them, but he was stopped by Killua. "Wait, he said he'd catch up," he reminded him. "We should run before we lose the others ahead!"

"Sorry, I can't do that!" Gon immediately turned down Killua's offer. "Leorio is my friend, so are Kou and Kurapika. I can't abandon them all!"

_"Friends?"_ Killua thought, watching Gon run off to Leorio's aid. He sighed, knowing that some of them had potential to come far in the exam. "_I guess there are four more dropouts." _Unlike the others, Killua just kept running without looking back, trying to keep up with Satotz and the other examinees. He had no reason to help Leorio, someone who he had just met less than an hour ago. At the same time, he found it idiotic that everyone slowed down just because of one person, risking the chance of failing.

"Leorio, are you alright?" Gon asked Leorio who just got up with the help of Himeko and Kurapika.

"I am, but you should all go without me," he tried to reassure them, 'I'll catch up sooner or later." Gon, Himeko and Kurapika stared at Leorio in silence. They weren't going to leave him behind, and Leorio clearly knew that. He felt guilty for making them wait for him, but he also couldn't miss this chance to get the license. He needed the Hunter license, and the money that came with it and a race wasn't going to take that away from him. "I'm not going to drop out!" He exclaimed, sprinting off suddenly. Leorio statement left the others mind blown, trying to process whether he had just gotten all his stamina back.

The left behind trio started taking turns to look at each other, wondering whether Leorio seriously just sprinted off without them. "He said he's not dropping out," they heard a familiar voice point out. "What are you all waiting for now?" They all turned to double check who the voice belonged to and saw Killua standing there, waiting for them to start running again.

"Killua, why are you back?" Gon asked surprisedly. The last time he saw Killua was before he set off, leaving him behind. He didn't exactly expect him to return and wait for them. But Killua's return somehow made him express his gratitude with a wide grin.

"It's because of you," he replied sheepishly, "You all sure know how to make a man feel bad about himself."

"Man? Which man?" Himeko asked, interrupting them both. "I don't see any men around besides Kurapika."

"Me of course!" He shot back. "Who else would I be talking about?"

"You have a point," she admitted in the same mocking tone. "I guess the white hair makes more sense that way."

"It's silver, not white!" He almost yelled back. "Besides, your friend took off without you. Shouldn't we all run after them before we lose sight of them?"

"He's got a point!" Kurapika pointed out. "We should get going!" Hearing this, Gon used his fishing rod to grab Leorio's briefcase that was lying on the floor around twenty metres behind them. Once he obtained the briefcase, they all started running again, not wanting to lose sight of Leorio or the other examinees and Satotz.

"That was cool!" Killua commented on Gon's fishing rod trick. That solves the mystery about his fishing rod, he uses it to do anything except fishing.

"I'll teach you how to do that if you teach me how do ride a skateboard." Gon tried to make a deal. "I'll teach you once we are done with this."

Killua then looked at Himeko. "I bet the brat there doesn't have any cool tricks to show off!" He snickered at her, clearly wanting to get on her nerves.

"I can kick your ass if that counts!" She replied in the same annoying tones he was using.

"Just try it," he challenged her, "I dare you."

"I will after this."

"You two are getting along quite well," Gon pointed out, watching the conversation go back and forth, "At least you are talking more to each other than before."

"I wouldn't exactly call that getting along, Gon." Kurapika corrected Gon, noticing that the two were trying to get on each other's nerves rather than try to get along. It didn't require much time for them to actually catch up with Leorio, and once they did, the bickering between Himeko and Killua finally came to a hold. They watched Leorio run in silence, now being more determined to pass than before. Whatever he was struggling for was still not known to them, but they all knew that money wasn't reason enough for anyone to put so much effort this. Anyone who wanted a license for luxury would have dropped out by now, but Leorio who was on the verge of giving up still kept going.

"You're pretty determined for an old man, aren't you?" Killua asked him, noting how tired yet how pumped up he was all of the sudden.

"Watch your mouth brat! I'm a teen just like all of you!" Hearing his comeback, the other four just froze on their spots not knowing whether it was a joke or not as Leorio continued running.

"What?!" They all exclaimed in surprise, not wanting to believe their own ears.

"Why is it so surprising?" Leorio was somewhat offended by how hard it was for them to actually believe that he was this young. "I'm a couple of years older than Kurapika," he explained before revealing his real age, "I'm actually only nineteen, so I'm technically still a teenager!"

"And how old are you Kurapika?" Himeko asked Kurapika who still seemed to be in a state of shock.

"I'm only three years younger than him," Kurapika answered her question, before asking one of his own. "Why do I feel so old all of the sudden?"

The talk of age reminded Gon of something. He turned to Killua. "Besides, how old are you Killua?"

"What kind of a question is that?" Killua questioned, wondering if Gon didn't actually get the hint that he was the same age as him and Himeko. "I'm twelve, the same age as you."

"Really?" Gon asked in surprise, "I honestly thought you were older than that!"

"Why would you think that?"

"Well, Kou pointed out that you have white hair so I just naturally assumed that you were older." Hearing this, Killua looked over at Himeko to see a satisfied grin on her face. He couldn't actually believe how gullible Gon truly in order for him to think that was true.

"And you really believed her?" He was so close to face palming, "she was just joking." That aside, he had something that he wanted to clear up once and for all. "Besides, my hair is silver, not white. Keep that in mind!"

"Really?" Gon instantly turned his head to Himeko to confirm it. "Is that true Kou?"

"Yeah," she admitted that it was just a joke she made in response to Killua's insults. "But I never knew you'd believe me Gon. You're seriously too gullible for your own good," she let out a loud sigh.

"Leorio, why are you doing the Hunter exam?" Kurapika asked. "If you did it for money, you would have dropped out long ago, but you're still going. It can't be for money, I won't believe that!" Kurapika's words turned all the attention towards Leorio. He did have a point, Leorio collapsed but still decided to keep running. If money was his motive he would have dropped out long ago, all this trouble wouldn't have been worth it. Everyone was waiting for Leorio to answer Kurapika's question.

"You see, I once had this close friend. He died long ago, but of what? An illness that was curable. I was totally helpless, I didn't have the money to afford to pay for the surgery and the medical expenses. If I had money I could have saved him, damn it!" Leorio slowly let out his bottled up emotions. He felt like he could finally open up to Gon and the others after all the things they had gone through in the past few days, he managed to trust them with his dream. "I want to become a doctor. If I become a Hunter and get money, I will become a doctor. I won't let people like my friend die anymore!"

Everyone ran in silence thinking deeply about Leorio's response. It seemed like Kurapika wasn't the only one who had a deep wound that drove him to become a Hunter. Leorio felt a lot of remorse for not being able to help his friend although there was a way to cure him. It wasn't his fault and he seemed to understand that, yet he didn't want to make the same mistake again. He didn't want to let down his friends again and he won't let down his friends again. That was his resolve; the same resolve that got him this far and drove him even further.

_"He is actually kinda cool,"_ Himeko thought to herself, _"But I'll just keep it to myself to avoid his head getting any bigger than it already is."_ The fact that she actually complimented someone was an accomplishment. She could be a real, judgemental brat sometimes, insulting people inside her head, so the fact she complimented him meant that he was actually starting to grow on her. Sure, Leorio still had that egoistic, money hungry side of him but who didn't have a bad side to themselves.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked," Kurapika's head hung low all of the sudden. He didn't exactly expect such a response from him, but he could relate to him. Losing his friends and family all in one night, and ending up alone in this cold and dark world. He was also enduring this pain alone all these years. His promise to avenge his clan got him this far and will drive him further. This was Kurapika's resolve; something he has to do and will do by all means. He wasn't the only one with his head hung low. Leorio's words seemed to have affected Himeko too. She suddenly remembered how she felt before meeting Gon and the others. It was hard work that got her this far, but at the same time she had something deep inside her heart that reminded her to get back up and try harder whenever she failed.

"Kou, are you okay?" Gon asked, noticing that she was in deep thoughts about something all of the sudden. She looked up after hearing his voice and gave him a faint smile, trying to reassure him that she was okay.

"That reminds me brat," Leorio started off before looking at her, "why did you want to become a Hunter?" Now that his mystery was solved, one more mystery remained unsolved. Since he revealed his reason to do the Hunter exam that year, he felt like he could ask her for her reason too. They knew hardly anything about her, not even her surname.

"The names Kou, not brat," she corrected him in an irritated tone. "Also, I've told you before, didn't I? Hunters can access a large range of information and books that a normal person could only dream of. A Hunter gets access to unlimited knowledge!"

"You're telling us to actually believe that bullshit?" Leorio raised his brow, clearly not believing her. The last thing a twelve year old would care about is unlimited knowledge, and even Himeko herself knew that her lie wasn't going to last that long. "It's just as believable as my money story."

"You're right," she finally admitted, which surprised everyone. Based on how stubborn she was all this time, they didn't actually think she'll reveal much about herself, but that just made them want to know more about her. "I was lying, and I didn't bother doing a good job in it."

Knowing that she was lying all this time, it just raised another question. "What is it then?" Leorio questioned, hoping that she'd finally clear their doubts.

"I'm trying to find something!" She answered, trying to be as brief with her answers as she possibly could.

"So you're like me?" Gon asked, "I'm trying to find my dad,"

"No, I'm not like you at all," she cut in immediately. There was nothing similar about Gon and her, nothing at all. "It's the opposite actually," she continued to give them very vague answers. "No offence, but I don't think any of you are close enough to know something so personal about me. I don't hold anything against you all, but let's just leave it at that." Friends or not, she had only known them for two days; at the end of the day they were still strangers. Gon, Leorio, Kurapika and even Killua were alright, but apart from Gon, she still didn't fully trust everyone else which is why she decided not to open her mouth any further at this point. Maybe at some point, she would get the opportunity to tell them all her reasons for taking the exam, but for now they had to deal with the vague answers she gave them.

Killua noticed that the conversation was starting to become uncomfortable for everyone, so he tried to change the topic. "Look, the exit is up those stairs," he informed them, pointing at the light ahead. Everyone looked up ahead at the long set of stairs leading outside. It was the first time they saw light in a couple of hours and it set their minds at peace to know that the exit to this dreaded tunnel was just a couple more metres away. Just a few more steps, and they would be done; or that was what they all thought. "Hey Gon, let's see who reaches the exit first," Killua challenged Gon and finally having someone to compete with, he gladly accepted his challenge with no second thoughts. Killua may be a friend now, but he couldn't lose the race to him.

"Kou, come along. The loser has to buy lunch," Gon turned back at the rest, "You two too, Kurapika and Leorio."

"I think I'll run at my own pace," Leorio turned his offer down. Coming this far at the rate he was going was more than enough work, he didn't want to run any faster than he already was.

"I'll have to refuse, too," Kurapika smiled, "But Kou, you should go with him." Leorio and him were another story, but for some reason he felt like Himeko should be dragged into the race. She didn't seem like the type to have many friends, and he wasn't sure whether she even had any other than them. He had no clue what happened to her in the past, or why she had such trust issues, but at her age she was supposed to have fun. He looked back at all the things he did at her age; he was reckless, and willing to try out new things, it somehow reminded him of how Gon was. He lightly shoved her forward so Gon could drag her along.

"I don't know, I don't feel like it…" she tried to turn his offer down too, but Gon wasn't prepared to hear another rejection. He grabbed her hand and pulled her along, so she had to run along with them. "Hey, Gon. What the hell are you doing?!"

"You are racing with us!" He gave her a firm answer, with no choice out. She had to accept the challenge, and picked up her pace as she couldn't afford to feed two overly hyper boys. Only God knew how much they could shove down. Surprisingly, all three of them had a lot of energy left, and got ready for a final sprint up the long staircase. They passed quite a lot of the other examinees who looked surprised to see the energetic children treat this as a game, and they eventually managed to catch up with Satotz, much to his surprise. They made this seem like a game of tag, when the whole point of this tiring exercise was to test their stamina.

"Goal!" They all shouted in sync, but seeing how all three of them said it at the same time, they looked at each other convinced that the they were the ones that won the race.

"You two lose!" Killua was the first one to declare, "you have to buy me lunch."

"You came after me," Gon objected instantly, "I came first! Tell him Kou!"

"I clearly reached the goal before you two." Instead of supporting Gon like he wanted, she tried to convince the boys that she was the winner of this race. "You two probably blinked and didn't see it."

"Ha!" Killua let out a mocking laugh, "maybe it was you who blinked and didn't see me coming first."

"Satotz-san, you saw who came first right?" Gon asked the examiner who was right behind them. "It was me, wasn't it?"

"I believe all three of you reached the goal at the same time," Satotz answered Gon, yet he still couldn't believe that the trio managed to run past him like it was nothing.

"At the same time?" Killua asked in disappointment, before proceeding to complain about the situation. "That's lame!"

"We can just buy each other lunch," Gon suggested.

"What's the point in that?" Himeko asked, "We can just buy ourselves lunch instead of going through all that trouble!"

One after one, the number of contestants that reached the goal increased. Kurapika and Leorio ended up reaching the goal too, eventually. After waiting a while, the door they came from shut meaning this was it. Only the people who reached the goal could continue. There was a lot more left, and the examinees were given a few minutes to regain their breath which would hopefully help them get through the distance ahead. "Well done to the contestants that made it this far, we are halfway there. Next up is the Numere Wetlands," Satotz announced, before he continued to warn the remaining applicants. "Don't be fooled everyone, this area is also called the Swindlers' Swamp. All kinds of creatures live here that trick humans and feast on them. Please stay close to me as we continue running!" But as soon as he finished though, their next test was about to begin.

"Wait, don't be fooled by him!" A voice shouted from behind. Everyone turned around to see an injured man come out from behind, "He's not the real examiner, I am! He is one of those beasts that trick humans and eat them." He then pulled out an ape like creature with similar facial features as Satotz he was dragging behind him.

_"Dun dun dun, plot twist!"_ Himeko gasped looking at the sudden turn in events. A lot of examinees were thrown into confusion. Some people started to doubt Satotz, while others were not very convinced by the act. The crowd broke into chatter, talking amongst them to come up with a conclusion on which examiner they should follow. _"Idiots, if he really wanted to eat us then he would have already done it while we were stuck in the tunnel with no where else to run."_

However, not everyone was able to draw to a safe conclusion with the addition of this new character, and this was a cue for the curtains to raise, and for #44 to step forward. Some were able to recognise him, especially after that stunt earlier in the waiting area and anticipated what he was going to do next. He threw something that looked like a playing card towards both the injured man and Satotz. Satotz managed to catch it, while the other man didn't. "So, Satotz-san is the real one after all. A Hunter would have been able to survive that attack with ease," he shrugged, as if it was all a game. The injured man was killed with that razor sharp playing card and Satotz however didn't seem impressed by #44's actions. He gave him a stern warning instead, aware of his violent history from previous year.

"Did you hear, that guy was disqualified for attacking an examiner last year," someone whispered in the crowd.

"Really? That guy is nuts!"

"Yeah, his name is Hisoka. You should watch out for him."

Kurapika and Himeko weren't happy with Hisoka passing the first stage. This was the second time he unintentionally caught their attention, and that clearly wasn't a good sign. "I didn't expect him to drop out of the first stage anyway," Kurapika said with worry.

_"I'm starting to hate clown magician guys even more now…"_ Himeko thought, watching a psychopathic smile appear on Hisoka's face. He seemed content with himself, as if killing these people seemed to calm him down. It disturbed her knowing that she could end up as one of his victims too. He was trouble, and all she hoped for was that he would somehow fail in this phase of the exam so she wouldn't have to go up against him later on.

A lot of the examinees were still wondering whether it was the right choice to go forward. After all, they were fooled before the race even started, and that was just a taste of what could happen in the misty swamps ahead. "Let's proceed," Satotz started running again and the examinees ran behind him. A lot of them were still out of breath even after the short break they got. Nonetheless, they still kept running as they had to stick close to the examiner in order to survive this hell hole. As the examinees started running, the fog started to thicken. Gon and Killua were running at ahead while Himeko, Kurapika and Leorio were near the back. Killua noticed the fog thickening and also noticed Hisoka running behind them as well as a couple of other examinees. To him, the situation didn't seem great. He could just smell the blood lust in the air, and they had to get away as far as they could.

"Gon, we should pick up our pace. The air behind us doesn't smell too good."

Gon looked back and couldn't figure out why he would say that. To him the air behind him smelt just fine, but he seemed to have trust in Killua. "Kou, Kurapika, Leorio. Killua and I are going ahead!" He shouted, loud enough for anyone nearby to hear them.

"Idiot, you weren't supposed to let the whole world know," Killua yelled at Gon in annoyance. The whole point was for them to get away from Hisoka, but the message would have probably travelled to him too.

Meanwhile, the trio at the back heard Gon's message. "I guess we can manage at our own pace," Leorio said, clearly not aware of the dangers ahead of them. To be perfectly honest, none of them knew what was going to happen ahead of them, and all they could possibly do is keep running cluelessly, trying not to get lost in the fog.

"Okay, we'll be right behind you!" Himeko shouted back, hoping Gon would have heard her message. The fog eventually became thicker and soon, a lot of the examinees started to get separated in little groups. The swamp creatures were expecting their arrival and were just waiting for the fog to thicken so they could come out and feast on the weaker humans. Once the screaming started, they just kept coming from every direction. There was no end to them and the fact that no one could see what's in front of them frightened them even more. Who or what was out there to get them? No one knew for sure!

At some point, Hisoka found himself surrounded by those men that kept an eye on him during the journey through the swamp. To them, he was an eyesore and they came to take care of him once and for all. However, it just made Hisoka's job easier. After all, he was acting as an examiner himself, passing and failing people. However, the people he failed would never be able to have a chance to try again. He didn't find the prey; the prey found him.

Gon started to become worried hearing all these screams behind him. He occasionally turned to look behind him, trying to see if his friends were behind him, but there was no one there. He didn't want to think of this possibility, but one of those screams could have belonged to one of his friends.

"What is it, Gon?" Killua asked when Gon stopped running.

Killua watched Gon turn around, ready to run back, "I'm going to look for the rest."

"Are you feeling alright? Are you really wanting to try and find them in this fog. They've come this far, they should be okay." However, stubborn Gon did not listen and ran off. He wasn't going to let his friends die, and Killua just watched Gon disappear into the thick fog. But this time around he decided not to stick with him. He came to complete the Hunter exam, not to babysit other examinees.

Himeko, Kurapika and Leorio continued to walk while staying close together. They knew which directions to avoid, judging by the screams. A few minutes later, they saw a familiar figure standing in the fog. It was Hisoka with a dozen of dead bodies lying in a circle around him. His prey were dead, and he needed new victims to kill time. Himeko and Kurapika proceeded with caution around him and even Leorio knew that this was a life or death situation they found themselves in. One wrong move could cost them their lives.

"Listen closely," Kurapika whispered, "Don't make any obvious movements!" It was only loud enough for Himeko and Leorio to hear. "I'll count to three, and on three, we'll each run into different directions. Don't look back, just keep running!" Hisoka found his new prey and he slowly walked towards the trio, wanting to satisfy his hunger even further. "One, two, three!" On three, the trio split into three different directions and just kept running without looking back, just how Kurapika told them to. Hisoka just stopped walking and didn't bother to run after them. They could run for now, but they couldn't hid from him. He knew he'd encounter them again sooner or later, and when that time comes, he could deal with them then. He was about to turn around and find new prey, but was surprised to see that one of the trio return. It was Leorio.

"I'm sorry pal, but I just couldn't run away," Leorio stood there with his pocket knife, ready to take on Hisoka. "I was born a man after all."

Hisoka was amused by Leorio's unexpected courage, and it only sparked his interest in him further. He never expected him out of all three of them to return by himself to fight him one on one. The whole thought of that was ridiculous, he couldn't help but giggle to himself. But as expected, Leorio didn't last too long in a match between him and Hisoka and was knocked out after just one punch on the cheek.

"You pass," Hisoka whispered to the now unconscious Leorio. What he meant, only Hisoka truly knew, but for now he acknowledged Leorio's courage.

"Get away from him!" Himeko warned before Hisoka could get any closer to Leorio. She could have sworn that she heard Leorio's voice while running away from Hisoka, so she slowly snuck back and hid behind a tree. She was shocked to see Leorio up against Hisoka when he came to sight in the thick fog, wanting to come out of hiding and punch Leorio herself for his idiocy. But now that she made herself noticeable, she didn't know what to do anymore. Hisoka grew interested in the twelve year old who ran back and was standing in front of him. She was trying to look brave in front of him, but Hisoka knew she was shaking on the inside. That thought itself was enough to excite him.

_"Go away, go away, go away, go away, go away,"_ she kept chanting like a mantra, but Hisoka just came closer. _"Shit, it's not working!" _It was time for Plan B; whatever that was. "Stop!" She yelled, holding up her hand. "I may not look like it, but I took on men twice, no trice my size!" The fact that she was trembling in fear made it so obvious that she was lying, but it was her only defence until she could think of a better plan. She would have been nuts if she went up against him. She didn't have a death wish after all.

The fact that she ran back with no plan, just hoping for the best was so unlike her. She was more of a thinker than a fighter, and now she had to come up with a plan to get out of there alive along with Leorio. However, Hisoka just slowly continued to walk closer and closer and time was running out for her. She clenched her fists and got into a fighting position in case he attacked, but all she could do was hope for the best and wish for a meteorite to drop down from outer space and crush Hisoka. But on the other hand, she knew that Hisoka would just crush the meteor with his bare hands.

_"Maybe I have to use that,"_ she thought to herself, seeing that Hisoka was getting closer. _"I can't beat him, but I might be able to distract him and get Leorio out of here."_ She was hesitant though, knowing that she could only buy maybe a couple of seconds. Not just that, she knew that fighting back would just excite him even further. But if there was no other way out, she was running out of options and fighting back was the only option left.

"Get away from her!" Hearing a familiar voice, Himeko's attention turned from Hisoka to a small figure standing in the fog. Her prayers were answered; although it was just Gon and no meteor. She wondered whether Gon even knew what situation he found himself in and hoped that he was smart enough to not get them all killed. Gon used his fishing rod to hit Hisoka, but at that opportunity Hisoka just grabbed Gon by the neck, crushing it. "Get away from here Kou. Get Leorio away from here too!"

"But, what about you?" She asked. She came back for Leorio, but she couldn't abandon Gon; at least not in that state. He was getting crushed to his death by Hisoka, she couldn't run away. That would be inhumane, and the guilt with haunt her for the rest of her life, especially since Gon came to save her. Hisoka however was more interested in the courage Gon showed and the fact that Gon was able to launch an attack on him intrigued him even more.

_"Stay calm, Himeko!"_ She told herself, trying to stay composed. _"Think of a way out of here." _Himeko's prayers were answered again when another familiar voice came from the misty fog. _"Wow, I should pray more often…" _She made a mental note to herself, seeing how two of them were answered.

"Himeko, Gon!" Kurapika arrived to the chaotic scene. Leorio lying on the ground unconscious, Himeko standing frozen trying to think of a way to get out of that situation and lastly Gon being stuck in the grips of Hisoka. Kurapika wondered whether anyone in the group actually listened to him, seeing that they all somehow found themselves back in the danger zone; even Gon managed to get there. Seeing Himeko unharmed relieved him a little, but he worried looking at Gon being held up by his throat and Leorio's unknown condition. He started thinking, he could tell Himeko to take Leorio and run now while Hisoka was distracted. But managing to save Gon was going to be harder than it seemed. He had to stay back and fight, so he reached for the Bokken he carried around, gripping on both wooden swords tightly looking for an opening to attack.

But that was when Hisoka decided to loosen his grip and dropped Gon to the floor. Kurapika watched him carefully, thinking of the possibility that he might be the next victim, but Hisoka didn't seem to hold much interest in him. Himeko who was using the opportunity to slowly approach Leorio too was startled by the sudden sound of Gon landing on the floor, so she turned to see what was going on. _"Is he is having a change of heart?_" she wondered, seeing that Gon was unharmed. However, Hisoka got dangerously close to her making her body stiffen up all of the sudden. But she was surprised when Hisoka just walked past her giving her a smug grin and approached the unconscious Leorio instead, picking him up over his shoulder, _"Oh no, he didn't have a change of heart!"_

"Don't touch Leorio!" Gon yelled at him, hoping that Hisoka would let go of him and amuse himself with whoever was still consciously standing there. By then, all three of them were prepared to defend themselves in case of an attack, but that only managed to make Hisoka chuckle in amusement.

"If you want him back, why don't you try getting him back yourself?" Hisoka challenged them all. Rather than calling it a challenge, it sounded more like a dare. All three of them were aware that Hisoka was significantly stronger than all of their strength combined. Would it really be wise to follow him into the fog, risking to be attacked when their guards were down? Nonetheless, Hisoka slowly walked away, vanishing into the white fog, carrying Leorio with him.

"Oh no, what are we meant to do now?!" Himeko started to panic, now that Hisoka and Leorio were both out of sight.

"How are we meant to get him back now?" Kurapika asked.

"That was my question!" Himeko blurted out. "We can't just chase after him, not in this condition."

While those two were busy thinking of a safe way to get Leorio out of this mess, Gon started sniffing the air around them. He then chose to interrupt their nervous breakdown, "I think I can track them down. Leorio's cologne is unique, I can smell it from here."

Himeko and Kurapika turned their attention towards Gon, who was still using his nose to sniff around the area. _"Is he a dog?"_ They started wondering. But with no time to answer their own question, Gon led the way and the remaining two followed him closely. They did not hesitate to follow Leorio's scent, not wanting to imagine the kind of things Hisoka could do to him.

While walking though, Kurapika couldn't help but let out his anger now that they were in a much safer situation than earlier. "Seriously, I let you two out of my sight and you end up doing something stupid!" He yelled at her. He was mad, and that was natural. Leorio was another story, but he knew that Himeko was well aware of how dangerous Hisoka really was.

"I'm sorry," Himeko apologised, her head was hanging low. She understood how dangerous it really was to go back, but hearing Leorio's voice made her stop running. Knowing that he went back, she couldn't just keep running anymore. Just the thought of taking another step forward gave her a bad taste in her mouth.

"I was worried when I couldn't find the two of you," Kurapika couldn't help but continue ranting out his anger. "What if that Hisoka was still blood lusting? You two would have been dead right now!" Himeko remained quiet, feeling remorseful for making Kurapika worry. He was right, Hisoka could have easily killed all four of them and only god knew what was going on in his head to make him stop. He saw that she was regretting her decision, and seeing how confused she was with her own actions, he decided to cool his head."Just make sure not to do something reckless like that again," he gave her a slight smile before lightly patting her head, telling her not to worry about it any longer.

But honestly, she was still confused on why she acted without thinking first. _"Why did I run back in the first place?!"_ She started scolding herself._ "That is was so unlike me, I'm a chicken and rely on my brain all the time, why would I willingly run back to Hisoka?"_ She then looked at Gon who was leading them through the fog, _"I know, his good heart is starting to influence me. Damn you, Gon!"_

Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a sneeze and ran into Gon in front of her, "Achoo!"

"Bless you, Gon," Kurapika said, "Make sure not to catch a cold."

"Thank you," he thanked him before he continued leading the way to wherever Hisoka took Leorio.

Himeko started thinking, now that all four of them decided to get sidetracked with Hisoka, did that mean they failed this year's exam? Did all four of them really choose to fail to rescue each other. She ran back to make sure Leorio was out of trouble, but Gon who was running head with Killua got worried and ran back knowing that there was a big chance of him failing after losing sight of the main group. Similarly, Kurapika wandered around looking for her and Leorio, and came back knowing that his own life would be put in danger. Kurapika and Gon too would be aware that there was only a very small chance of them catching up with the main group. In a way, she felt grateful seeing how much they actually cared about her, despite her calling them close to strangers just a couple of hours ago.

"Thank you," Himeko muttered under her breath, and for a moment Gon and Kurapika turned around to see whether she said something. She just smiled back at them, leaving them slightly confused. Nonetheless, they returned a smile before focusing on getting Leorio back. The trio followed the scent of Leorio's cologne until they reached a crowd of examinees. Surprisingly, they reached the main group again which meant that they were at the goal. Now that one problem was solved, they continued to scan the crowd in the hopes of finding Hisoka somewhere.

"Oh, it's you guys," Killua approached them in surprise, "I never thought you'd reach the goal. Well done!"

"Killua! You're here too!" Gon exclaimed, excited to see his new friend at the goal.

"Well duh! Unlike a certain someone I decided to stick with the group instead off running of on my own."

"It couldn't be helped. After all, we all made it here safely."

Kurapika and Himeko were still on the look out for Hisoka. When they found him, the two froze, but Hisoka just pointed towards one of the trees under where Leorio was still lying unconsciously. They both let out a sigh of relief before rushing to check up on Leorio's condition. Thankfully, he was just asleep and other than that swollen cheek, there was nothing wrong with him. Gon and Killua eventually made their way there too.

"Why is his face so messed up?" Killua asked curiously, seeing how everyone else still looked unharmed. Gon decided to explain the situation to him while Himeko was helping Kurapika treat Leorio's wounds.

"You encountered Hisoka and survived?!" Killua exclaimed in surprise, wondering whether he should actually believe them or not. If this was the same Hisoka he thought about, all four of them would be corpses still lying around in a ditch. Gon nodded in response, assuring him that he was indeed telling the truth. "That's insane! That guy was literally looking to hunt people down." Killua still couldn't believe Gon's story, no matter how much of an honest person Gon was.

Now that all of them were safe after that mind blowing incident, Himeko started to ponder about a question. No one else seemed to know about this as this only happened when she arrived to see Leorio getting punched. She was the only witness there. "There is something I don't understand," she said, interrupting the conversation between Killua and Gon. "You see, when I arrived, Hisoka said something to Leorio. I'm pretty sure he said something along the lines of Leorio passing, but passing what?" The question was driving her as insane, especially since Hisoka was nothing more than an examinee just like them al.

"He was probably doing his own examination on the other examinees. He's assessing everyone here and testing whether they are worthy to continue the exam in his eyes or not. Leorio must have left an impression on him, so he didn't kill him. I'm guessing that's why he didn't kill Kou or Gon either," Kurapika explained his theory. He was right, the number of examinees decreased by a lot. A lot of them got lost in the swamp but Hisoka also dealt with some. Whatever Hisoka's motives were, they didn't know for sure. For now they were safe, but that didn't mean that Hisoka would spare them the next time around.

When the examinees finally got a couple of minutes to rest, Satotz reappeared to make an announcement. "Well done to the applicants who made it this far," he congratulated them all, "you all herby passed the first stage. You will all proceed to the second stage now."

"Finally!" Himeko stretched fully satisfied with them all passing, "It's about time we stopped running."

Kurapika on the other hand wasn't so happy. One phase was done, but who knew what the next had to offer, "We still haven't passed the exam, so it's too early to celebrate."

"Hey, Leorio is waking up!" Gon announced, as he noticed that Leorio was starting to regain consciousness. Kurapika asked everyone to keep quiet about the encounter with Hisoka to prevent Leorio from acting out like that again. Once he was up, they followed the remaining candidates and made their way to the site of the second stage of the exam to meet their next examiners.

The first one was a woman. Her slim figure could be seem through the mesh top she wore over her black bikini top, along with her toned legs that were exposed. Her green hair was tied into five top knots. The second examiner on the other hand was the exact opposite. He was a much larger man, with a big pot belly sticking out of his orange t-shirt. They started to introduce themselves.

"I'm Menchi!"

"I'm Buhara."

"We are your examiners for the second stage."


	5. Let's Cook!

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 4**

_Let's Cook_

...

The remaining examinees were waiting eagerly to hear their next challenge. For this particular phase of the exam, they had two examiners instead of just one like in the first phase. The first phase was difficult enough, so some of them didn't even want to consider how difficult the second phase would be seeing that there were two examiners. However, once Menchi continued her introduction, the atmosphere wasn't so tense anymore.

"We are Gourmet Hunters." Menchi's statement caused a mixed response. A lot of them were snickering at the back, questioning the seriousness of the exam. Others were just laughing, thinking she is just an examiner with a very bad sense of humour and hoped that she would eventually get down to business. But neither Menchi nor Buhara seemed amused at what they just said, making them realise that this was no joke at all.

"Gourmet Hunters?" Gon asked, thinking that it was a very strange yet unique combination of jobs. However, he couldn't begin to imagine the job description for it though.

"Gourmet Hunters go out and search the world for all kinds of ingredients to create new cuisines," Kurapika; or Kurapedia how Leorio and Himeko liked to call him now explained. In his defence though, unlike the others he did enough research on Hunters before turning up at the exam. If he were to find himself in a messy situation, at least he would have some background knowledge on Hunters to help him out. But in his case, it wasn't too surprising at all.

After Gon finally got an explanation on what a Gourmet Hunter was, he looked back up at the two Hunter examiners standing in front of the large crowd, "That would mean…"

"That's right," Menchi affirmed overhearing Kurapika's explanation, just like the majority of examinees around them. She then continued to clear any doubts anyone still had, "The second stage of the Hunter exam is cooking!" Hearing this, a loud set of disappointed moans could be heard before the majority, mostly the machos in the crowd started to complain about the sudden turn in events.

"We didn't come all this way to cook you two dinner," some of the examinees started protesting. Taking a look around, most of them were middle-aged men, so you can't be too surprised by their responses. You had to give it up for Menchi and Buhara for actually putting up with their annoying whining though. The Hunter exam was supposed to consist of a wide range of challenges, no one mentioned that cooking wasn't one of those.

"If you don't like it, just go home!" Menchi answered back to anyone who was still whining about the challenge she chose to give the applicants with Buhara, "Anyone else who doesn't like the way we run things here can go home too. We aren't stopping you from going back home." Buhara was the only one who could hold himself back now, Menchi had more than enough of these grown men complaining. As expected, the crowd became quiet. No one was willing to give up after coming this far and running god knows how many miles. For now, they just had to suck it up and deal with it if they wanted to pass and get through to the third phase. They waited for either Menchi or Buhara to make their requests.

"First you will have to cook a meal I request," Buhara started off before he continued to explain the challenge. Only those who were selected by Buhara could move on and complete Menchi's request. Those accepted by both Buhara and Menchi would be able to qualify for the third stage of the Hunter exam. There was another round of complaints by the crowd which were quickly brushed off by Menchi. She once again offered them the opportunity to leave the exam at this point and go home if they were not satisfied with the way the second stage was run.

_"Wow, talk about sassy..."_ Himeko thought, looking at Menchi. Although the men didn't like her, Himeko certainly grew fond of the way she dealt with all these big babies. But then again, cooking wasn't exactly her forte. She'd rather run through the swamps again than start burning two meals.

"I've never cooked in my entire life," Leorio sighed, interrupting her thoughts. None of them were especially surprised though hearing that from Leorio. He looked more like someone who would rather eat out than go through the trouble of cooking something. It did make sense though since he lived by himself all those years, cooking for just one person was time consuming and pointless in a way.

"It was indeed unexpected," Kurapika added, trying to imagine all the possible dishes the examiners could be requesting. Kurapika looked like he could make a couple of simple dishes, but he was more worried about the fact that their examiners were Gourmet Hunters. The thought of not knowing how picky they were with their food was starting to worry him.

"I expected it!" Gon cut in, making the others look at him in surprise. He was the last person everyone expected to calculate the odds and predict what kind of challenge they'd be given. If anything, it would be either Kurapika or Himeko. That aside, he didn't look like the type who would enjoy being stuck in the kitchen.

"You can cook?" Killua was the first one to doubt him, raising a bow.

"Yes, I'm good at making rice with a raw egg on top," Gon smiled innocently. Everyone else sweat-dropped, not expecting that kind of a response.

"I guess that could be counted as cooking..." Kurapika said, trying not to put down Gon's confidence. But they all knew too well that breaking an egg over a bowl of cooked rice couldn't really be considered cooking, but seeing how proudly Gon smiled they couldn't just point that out.

"I don't think we should worry much," Killua interrupted their conversation.

"Why would that be?" Leorio asked curiously, "Do you know how to cook?" He didn't exactly expect Killua to know how to cook either, if anything he classed Gon, Killua and himself in the same category.

"No, but she must know how to cook," He pointed at Himeko, making everyone focus on her. "Not to be rude, but she is a girl after all."

"That's right, we have Kou!" Leorio smiled in relief understanding the point Killua was trying to make. Although not all girls enjoyed cooking, a great number of them would help out cutting onions in the kitchen. "She'll help us!"

"You can cook Kou?" Gon couldn't help but become more curious now that he thought he knew more about her, "What's your speciality?" Himeko could only give them an awkward smile in return, trying to figure out how she was going to nicely break their bubble, especially since they all had such high expectations of her.

"I'm good at…" She started off, raising everyone's expectations even further. They looked at her in anticipation, thinking of all the possible, heartwarming dishes she could be good at. "I'm only good at eating!" She admitted, before going on to apologise, "Sorry, but I've never cooked before." They all gave her dumbfounded expressions, blaming themselves for putting so much trust in her.

"Seriously, you could have made that less dramatic," Killua began to complain, seeing her grin sheepishly, "You built our hopes up before crushing it right down."

"Well it's your fault for stereotyping girls! Not all girls can cook you know," she wasted no time to protest, "You built up your own hopes!"

"Now it's certain, you'll never get married," he continued his rant, before going on to insult her even further, "You can't cook, you're flat and you don't even have the looks to make up for all that."

"Well excuse me, I'm like what, twelve?" She asked in irritation, "How many twelve year olds have you seen that weren't flat? Besides, in a few years time I'll grow into a pretty hot girl so you'll choke on your words and regret it."

"Don't joke around with the pretty young woman thing," Killua fake gagged to emphasise his point further, "it's weird!"

_"You little brat…" _she clenched her fist now that he was seriously starting to annoy her, _"Why am I even getting so worked up in the first place?" _She just wanted to ignore him being so immature, but her short temper wouldn't allow her to do that. It was very obvious that Killua was just trying to wind her up for his own amusement, but she still wanted to argue back and make sure to get the point across that she was much better than how he described her as. Gon, Kurapika and Leorio were watching them wasting their time, arguing over what seemed like something very pointless.

"Shouldn't we try stopping them?" Leorio whispered to the other two, knowing that Killua and Himeko weren't going to end it there.

"Maybe we should follow Gon's method again," Kurapika suggested, "Let them understand why they are angry at each other so they become closer." After all, it worked on him and Leorio in the past, so it could possibly work on these two too.

They both looked at Gon for him to give his suggestion. He was good at dealing with these kinds of situations, so maybe he had an idea on how to handle this too. "I don't think what Aunt Mito said will help them," he told them, seeing that compared to Leorio and Kurapika's argument, this one was over nothing. "Maybe we should try and split them up."

"Let me handle this," Leorio stepped forward confidently, after Gon agreed to split them up for now, "Hey, you brats. Stop making such a big scene here, you can fight all you want after the Hunter exam is over."

"Shut up, old man!" Himeko and Killua shut him down simultaneously, much to his annoyance.

_"You damn brats…"_ Leorio was about to give them a piece of his mind, but Kurapika held him back knowing that he would only end up joining the argument. Kurapika wanted to take a much calmer and rational approach.

"He's right you two," he agreed with Leorio's point, "give it a break already." He was hoping that his calm approach was going to make the two would calm down too. He was sure that both of them were smart enough to understand that this wasn't the right time for them to argue.

"Kurapika, you're on my side, right?" Himeko asked him in desperation, wanting to find someone who would agree with her, "You think I'm pretty, right? You would marry me someone like me, right?"

He was take back by the sudden question, and didn't know what to say. Himeko was a sweet girl once you got to know her, and he knew that she was only interested in the answer because she wanted someone to side with her, and prove Killua wrong. In a way, it sounded a lot more childish of her than he expected, but then again she was a child after all. "Yes, I guess," he answered quietly, not knowing what else to say. His answer instantly brightened up her face, and she looked over at Killua with a _'in your face'_ look.

Now that Kurapika and Leorio were out of the game, Killua turned desperately turned to Gon. As Himeko was able to make Kurapika side with her, Killua decided to convince Gon to side with him. "Gon, you're with me right?" Gon was left speechless, he couldn't possibly choose between Himeko and Killua. "Gon, you're my friend right?" Killua tried again, this time trying to make it impossible for Gon to turn him down.

"Well… yes," Gon managed to give him a quiet response, feeling guilty at the same time.

"It's decided then," Killua stuck his tongue out at her, "Gon is on my side!"

"You were playing dirty," Himeko cut in, "He is my friend too, right Gon?"

"I'm friends with both of you," Gon answered, backing off one step at the time. He saw their intense, competitive eyes which then focused solely on him.

"You can only choose one Gon," Killua protested.

Himeko sighed at how the argument was going no where, _"When did I start caring what others think about me anyways? I've heard worse than all that before, suck it up already Himeko!" _It was so unlike her, the Hunter exam and everyone she met there so far was giving her major bipolar. "Since you're being such a childish, I'll be mature and give up. Go on, Gon can be on your side, take Kurapika and Leorio while you are at it too. I don't have time to fight with children, neither did I come here for that." Himeko said before turning her back towards Killua, which angered him.

"Hey, I'm still not done -" Killua was interrupted by Buhara, who was now starting to grow impatient because of two children bickering in a large crowd of whining big babies.

"If you two are done, I'd like to give you my request for the challenge," he started off. The crowd quieted down and listened closely to his request. "My order is, a roast pig. Not just any pig, but the most dangerous pig in this world that lives in this very forest, the Great Stamp!" As soon as he placed his order, the crowd of examinees ran straight into the forest to catch a pig for themselves. However, most of them didn't expect a giant pig that would chase after its hunters.

_"Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god," _Himeko was running away from the Stamp that was out to get her, _"What the hell is it's weakness?!" _She wasn't the only one, the boys were also running away from the beasts.

"Kou, are you okay?" She heard Leorio's voice from close-by, checking up on her after her commotion.

"No!" She screamed back, wondering whether that wasn't obvious yet.

"Has anyone figured out its weakness yet?" They could hear Kurapika's voice from a distance.

"No," they all replied.

"Has anyone tried poking their eyes?" Himeko asked them. Usually the eyes are the weaknesses these kinds of beasts had, and she thought that this one wouldn't be any different.

"No, that would just make it more angry!" Killua pointed out, "You'll get yourself killed if you tried that!"

Gon didn't want to run away anymore, "Let's try something, we can't keep running away forever."

He was right, they needed this pig to pass they second phase. Himeko stopped running and turned around and provoked the pig further, "Come at me!" She noticed that the pig increased its pace and started panicking, _"Shit, me and my big mouth!" _Himeko was hit by the Great Stamp and flew back, and eventually ended up falling into a bush, "Ouch!"

"Are you okay, Kou?" She heard Leorio's voice, asking another obvious question.

"I've never felt better!" She replied sarcastically. Despite her fail, Gon still tried his best to find a way to win over the overgrown pig. At some point, someone found the weakness on its forehead and the information spread around fast. By the end of it, all the examinees returned with a fully roasted pig for their first examiner. Buhara happily gobbled down each and every one of those pigs as the examinees watched in astonishment.

_"I think I burnt the pig a little..."_ Himeko worried, when it was finally her turn. However, Buhara still passed her despite that obvious burn on one side. It wasn't just her he passed. He decided to pass everyone, even the guy whose pig was charcoal black. It somehow put their minds at ease, knowing that the Hunter wasn't too picky with his food and ate just about anything. All that was left was Menchi's request.

"Now for my request," she announced as soon as Buhara was done, "I want sushi!"

The examinees looked at each other in confusion. Sushi was a delicacy that was only found in certain parts of the world. Not many people would have tasted it, let alone heard of it. Well, all apart from that one contestant that was full of confidence. #294, his name was Hanzo. He claims to be a ninja, quite a talkative one too giving out business cards to pretty much anyone he met, hoping they'll soon request his service. The contestants were giving equipment and knifes but no one knew what to do next. Some tried to roll the rice into a ball, much to Hanzo's amusement.

"Do you have a clue on what to do?" Leorio asked Kurapika, hoping that at least he would know what was going on.

It wasn't much of a surprise that Kurapika indeed knew something about it. "I read about it somewhere," he told them, "Nigiri sushi, it's rice seasoned with vinegar and seasoning served with a slice of fresh fish. I can't recall the exact shape of it though."

"Fish?" Leorio asked, looking at the working tables they were at. They were only provided with rice, seasonings, a cutting board and tools. There was no fish for them to be used, so he wondered where they could get it from, "But we are in the middle of a forest!"

"Yes, but there are still ponds and rivers around," Kurapika added, making Leorio let out a loud 'oh', now that he understood the reason the phase took place in the middle of a forest. But thanks to Leorio's loud voice, all the contestants were able to eavesdrop into the conversation, making Kurapika just face palm. Everyone rushed out to the nearest pond or river to find a fish and complete Menchi's request. After they caught a fish, they made their way back to the exam site. Everyone brought back different species of fish, some looked even a little questionable. After they finished preparing their so called sushi, they lined up. Leorio was up first.

"What is this?" Menchi asked, raising an eyebrow at the still alive fish wrapped in rice.

Leorio proudly presented his dish, "It's sushi, just like you requested."

"You fail!" She stated, throwing the dish back without giving it another glance. With disappointment, Leorio moved out of the line and Gon went up next, with is usual, innocent smile. Menchi looked at it, noticing that it was no different from Leorio's dish. She threw his dish out again before commenting on it, "You're on the same level as the previous guy!"

Gon walked back, his head hung low in disappointment, "I'm on the same level as Leorio…." he groaned as soon as he got back with the main crew.

Himeko was the first one to run to his aid, lightly patting him on his back, "There, there, Gon," Himeko was trying to cheer Gon up again. "I know being compared to Leorio might be a big shock, but I know you are much better than that." Hearing his name being mentioned, Leorio couldn't help but start bickering with Himeko again.

One after the other, Menchi ruthlessly failed the examinees who weren't able to make anything close to what looks like sushi. Killua went up next, brimming with confidence while looking at his impressive presentation of food. "Shrimp cocktail, marinated trout with mustard sauce and rice," he looked up at her with a confident grin.

Menchi gave the plate a quick glance before throwing it out like the previous ones, "Disgusting. Who'd eat that?" Killua shrugged it off and walked off as if it was nothing unlike the other examinees who made a big deal out of being turned down. Hisoka who was in the line also walked off and started sulking near a river. It turned out that he had the same idea as Killua and couldn't think of any other way to present his food.

Himeko was up next and looked at Menchi with a big smile, which Menchi returned. She wasn't good at cooking, so she decided to use her cuteness to get her through the round. She wasn't exactly the cutest child alive; Gon already had that title, but who would reject a twelve year old being cute? "I tried my best, Menchi nee-chan~" she said in a bubbly high pitched voice, smiling at her once again, _"Okay, just do what Gon always does. It should work and get her attention away from the badly cut fish."_

"Okay, let's see," she asked for Himeko to reveal her dish. Himeko revealed a fish sliced into half with rice in between. Almost like a sandwich where the two slices of fish acted like the bread and the rice acted as the filling in the middle.

She gave Menchi another smile and waited with anticipation, "I call this, 'sandwich au poisson'." She didn't even know whether that made sense, but then again it sounded impressive.

"You're on the same level as the first guy!" Menchi declared before throwing her dish out on the large mountain of other failed dishes.

Himeko had a mental break down. If anything, she hated losing and being told that she was wrong, but now she was also compared to Leorio, "I'm on the same level as Leorio..."

"There, there," Gon cooed, patting her back lightly, "I know how it feels like to be compared to Leorio."

Another couple of contestants went up, only to be failed by Menchi one after the other while Kurapika was still thinking until he got an idea. He arranged his dish before confronting Menchi. He revealed the dish which turned out to be the same as Gon's with a dipping sauce and some vegetables on the side. For some odd reason, he thought he had it all figured out and was proudly standing there in front of his examiner, waiting to be passed by her.

Menchi did her said as she threw the plate away."You're on the same level as the first guy too," Hearing her blunt comment comparing him to Leorio, Kurapika walked away in agony and crouched down on the floor, drawing circles in the dirt.

"There, there," Gon crouched down beside him and started patting his back.

"We know how it feels to be compared to Leorio," Himeko added as she crouched down on the other side of Kurapika.

Hearing this for the third time now, Leorio started losing his patience, "Are you brats trying to start a fight with me?"

At the end, everyone started to run out of ideas and this was when Hanzo came up. He revealed the dish and Menchi looked surprised. Instead of throwing it away like all the other dishes, she picked the sushi put and took a small bite of it, which surprised the examinees watching. However, after chewing and swallowing it, she gave him a disappointed look before putting the piece of sushi back on the plate. Hanzo got the shape right, but it didn't taste anything like sushi.

"It's just a simple dish!" Hanzo shrugged, thinking Menchi was just over exaggerating but hearing this, Menchi finally lost it. She started yelling at Hanzo for not understanding that to prepare good sushi, a chef must undergo a lot of training. But at this point Menchi was not the only one who lost her patience. The examinees started becoming cranky seeing how Menchi managed to fail each and every one of them and demanded her to reconsider her choice.

"That's it, you all fail!" Menchi proceeded to take out her cellphone before looking through her contacts and calling somebody. She informed the person on the other side of the phone that there are no examinees left and that everyone has been failed. A lot of examinees were still arguing about her unfair judgement in the background, but she didn't care. They continued to complain about her unfair judgement and started to belittle Gourmet Hunters, claiming that they weren't real Hunters. Menchi didn't care, she went back and sat back down, patiently waiting for the higher ups to appear.

A while later, the Chairman of the Hunter Committee decided to drop by himself. He approached the two examiners and started to have a conversation with them. After convincing Menchi and calming her down, she finally agreed to give everyone another chance and asked the Chairman to take them to _Mt. Split in Half_. After arriving there, she told the examinees to step closer to the edge and watch her closely. There she waited for a couple of seconds before jumping down the gap in the middle of the mountain. She then grabbed an egg that belonged to a creature called the Spider Eagle and remained there, holding the spider web with one hand. These creatures laid eggs in the gaps of the mountain, and thanks to the spider web like threads they use for their nests, the eggs were safe from predators.

Menchi waited a little longer before letting go of the thread she was holding onto and jumping down the abyss, shocking the examinees. But Menchi was carried upwards by the strong wind that travelled up. "This is a rare delicacy called the Spider Eagle egg," she showed everyone the egg she obtained, "I want you all to jump down and obtain one of these in order to pass this phase."

Although this challenge was a lot more dangerous than the cooking task they were given earlier, a couple of examinees still managed to complain about the difficulty of this task. "That's insane! Who in their right mind would jump down?" One of the examinees questioned. At that moment, Gon, Himeko, Killua, Kurapika and Leorio stepped forward and jumped down after coming to an agreement with one another. Watching them, a couple of others jumped down and got hold of a thread. Unfortunately, some examinees fell into the deep abyss as they either let the thread go too early or as they couldn't get hold of the thread in the first place.

"How are we meant to know when the wind will rush upward again?" Leorio asked, not daring to take a look at how long the way down the abyss was.

"I can try and sense it," Gon suggested, before he closed his eyes and started concentrating. It was a life or death situation, and if Gon was wrong, they could all die. All attention was on Gon now, and they all hoped that his instincts wouldn't fail him this time around. Besides, it was his sharp instincts that got them this far in the first place.

_"Please be right, Gon,"_ she hoped, closing her eyes trying to concentrate on Gon's voice. She trusted Gon from the very start of the exam, but putting trust in someone else was nerve wrecking. Her hands started to sweat just thinking about what would happen if Gon was wrong.

"Now!" At Gon's signal, they all jumped down and got hold of an egg, before the strong gust of wind carried them back up. They successfully passed, and for the first time Menchi managed to smile in satisfaction. The examinees that remained at the edge looked at them in awe as they wouldn't dare to even look down. It took much more than just strength to become a Hunter, and they finally understood that. Though not everyone had the courage to jump down, some of them like Leorio and Himeko still took the risk, knowing that there was a chance of them passing. In Menchi's eyes, that was the beauty of being a Gourmet Hunter. She praised them for their courage and happily allowed them to proceed to the third stage. But before that, she wanted the examinees to boil the eggs that were collected to prove her point.

"These are so good!" Himeko exclaimed, taking another bite out of the egg. Unlike the regular chicken eggs they were all used to, these were perfectly fluffy and had a natural sweetness to them.

"That's what us Gourmet Hunters do, we risk our lives to be able to try all these delicacies," Menchi started to explain, "It might sound ridiculous to some people, but for us Gourmet Hunters, it's something worth doing. There is a thrill in risking your life to try a new kind of food. It just makes the food taste a lot better." Gourmet Hunters weren't just low class cooks, and everyone started to understand that. They had the same courage as any other Hunter, but they were passionate about spending their lives to try and find new dishes to satisfy their appetite. Some of their heads hung low in shame, especially since everyone who talked big lacked the courage to jump down gap and collect an egg for themselves.

Seeing this, Menchi seemed content with herself. Gourmet Hunters weren't a joke, and although it took long for her to get her point across, when everyone finally understood how passionate she was about what she was doing, she felt happy to have judged this years Hunter exam. She felt like she passed on not just her passion, but also an important message for future Hunters.


	6. Game at Midnight

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 5**

_Game at Midnight_

...

Forty three examinees passed the second phase. After bidding Menchi and Buhara goodbye, the remaining examinees entered the Hunter Committee's airship and gathered up in one of the many rooms. Beans, the personal secretary of the Chairman explained that the next stage would begin at eight am the next morning and until then, he advised the the examinees to get rest. Their day was over, and they had to get as much rest as possible before their next challenge. The examinees scattered again once Beans was done with his announcement. Amongst them were Kurapika, Leorio and Himeko, who looked around for a place to rest when Gon and Killua ran up to them, still full of energy.

"Let's explore the ship together!" Gon's voice blasted with excitement. Unlike Gon, Leorio and Kurapika weren't as enthusiastic about exploring the airship. They'd rather take it easy for the night and rest as they didn't know what there next challenge would be.

"Jeez, you kids really have too much energy," Leorio sighed in exhaustion, "I'll take it easy today!"

"I'll pass the offer too!" Kurapika added with a smile, being too tired to run around any longer. The first phase involved more than enough running for the day, and he could expect a lot more on the upcoming days.

"Let's get going, Gon!" Killua started to call Gon, seeing that it was pointless for him to try and convince them any further. "They don't want to come." Killua walked off ahead, expecting Gon to follow. The airship was quite large, so there was a lot of exploring they could be doing in the time they were wasting.

"Wait," he stopped Killua, seeing that there was still one person he hasn't asked yet, "what about you Kou?"

Hearing this, Himeko looked over at both Kurapika and Leorio, just like a child trying to get permission from their parents. The pair couldn't help but smile at her as the last thing they expected was for someone like her to be asking them for permission. It was surprisingly cute and childlike coming from someone like her. "Go on, Kou!" Leorio told her, "You look like you have some energy left to burn!" Himeko smiled at Leorio before Gon grabbed her by the hand and pulled her up, just like he always did. With her up on her feet, Gon trusted her to follow him as he lead the way.

"Let's go, Kou!" Gon beamed before chasing after Killua who was waiting patiently by the door. He wasn't exactly happy to see her joining them, but he shrugged it off seeing as she was on good terms with Gon. Himeko just smiled to herself before running after the pair. This was something she wanted to do for so long, playing care-freely with someone her own age, without anyone around her to snatch away her toys, or trying to seclude her, telling that she was too good to play with anyone else. She started thinking of it as pointless, but seeing how carefree Gon was, she wanted to be just like him sometimes.

Together they ran through the empty corridors, opening doors that weren't meant to be opened, and taking turns to play knock-a-dolly as suggested by Killua. Although Gon and Himeko weren't too into the idea of knocking on random doors and running away, Killua demonstrated it a couple of time knowing that they would eventually get into it. None of the other examinees were willing to risk wasting any more energy since they did not know what kind of challenge they would face the next morning, so they pretty much had most of the ship to themselves. After a few rounds and almost getting into trouble, they eventually decided to take a quick rest.

"I'm hungry," Killua announced, knowing he wouldn't be the only one. It was only natural, all they had to eat was that egg from the previous exam phase and that was clearly not enough. Knowing Killua's struggle all too well, Gon started sniffing something in the air and followed the trail with his trustworthy nose. Killua and Himeko looked at each other and shrugged before following him. Gon's concentration was focused entirely on the smell of grilled chicken that was lingering around the corridors, and eventually he came to a hold in front of a double door.

"This must be the kitchen," Gon stated confidently, pointing at the large door with the gold plated board reading _'Kitchen'_ right on top of it.

Killua brought Gon's attention to that golden board on top of the doors, "no shit Sherlock, it clearly says kitchen on there." Gon didn't notice that until then as he seemed to have trusted his nose more than his eyes at that moment, so his mouth formed an 'o' when he finally realised that nearly every door on the airship had a board either above or next to the doors, telling them what it was. But that didn't interest Killua much, all that he wanted now was some food. He was the first one to approach the door in order to sneak in, despite the _'Staff only'_ sign hanging on one of the two doors.

"Are you two really going to steal food from there?" Himeko asked, crossing her arms. Hearing that judging tone in her voice, Killua stopped and looked at her in annoyance.

"Why? You too chicken to help us?" He started to mock her, "You can stay here if you want to, but I won't share any of my food with you!"

"Gluttony is one of the seven sins. They'll serve us dinner in just a couple of hours, so have some patience," she informed him before continuing, "Besides, I never asked you to share your food with me. I just don't want Gon to learn these bad habits from someone like you."

"Are you his mum or something to care?" He continued to ridicule her, hoping she would eventually stop caring what he and Gon did. It's not like he was planning to kill somebody, all he wanted to do was steal some left over food that no one was going to eat anyway. He wondered why she should care this much about what they did.

Seeing this though, Gon started to grow uncomfortable. He was fond of both Himeko and Killua, so he couldn't chose sides, not like there was a side to choose in this situation. Both of them were nice people, so he just wished for them to get along. "Cut it out you two," Gon tried to bring in some peace between the two. His words finally brought some peace between them, but that didn't change the fact that they were still sending glares to one another.

"Tsk!" Killua clicked his tongue in annoyance, finally breaking eye contact with her, "Gon, let's go inside. Let her wait outside!" Killua pulled Gon with him as they snuck inside the kitchen to get some food. Gon did feel bad for leaving Himeko behind, but he knew that she wouldn't hold it against him. She just waited outside, predicting what was going to happen next. Just as she predicted, angry shouting could be heard from the inside and the two boys were immediately thrown out of the kitchen. Himeko just sighed, feeling bad not for Killua but Gon for being thrown out.

She walked up them and crouched down beside them, "I told you it won't work," she said, before getting back up on her feet and helping Gon back up. She gave Killua a displeased look as Gon was pulling him back on his feet. Her know-it-all attitude was starting to annoy him though, and he quickly found himself challenging her to try and do a better job than him.

"It's not like you can do any better can you now?" Feeling the tension rise between the pair, Gon started to feel very uncomfortable again and hoped that Himeko wouldn't say anything to make things any worser than it was right now. Killua was mad, and embarrassed that he couldn't do what he said he will before going into the kitchen. It felt like he lost to Himeko in that way. Seeing that there was no way to calm him down, Himeko eventually gave in.

"I'll try getting some food," she sighed in defeat, "I never thought I'd have to do something like this again, especially after becoming a Hunter. Well, not that I'm a Hunter yet, so I guess it's fine."

She told the two boys to hide before she knocked on the door to the kitchen. The same chef that threw Gon and Killua opened the door and he was clearly still angry about it. "I told you brats to go aw-" he stopped his sentence when he saw Himeko instead of Gon and Killua, "Sorry about that, little lady. We just had two brats your age trying to steal food."

_"Brats?"_ Killua clenched his fist, seeing the chef's sudden change in attitude.

"Do you have any left over food from this morning?" She asked politely and seeing this, his expression eventually softened.

"I'll go and have a look for you," he said before going back into the kitchen and shutting the door behind him. Himeko looked back at Gon and Killua peeking out of their hiding places, one being impressed by her while the other not so much. The chef came back a little while later with some leftover food that was neatly wrapped up in plastic wrap. "There wasn't much left but here you go. We are nearly done with dinner anyway, so I'm sure this will be more than enough for now."

"Thank you," she bowed, accepting the wrapped food he handed her.

"Are you possibly taking the Hunter exam too?"

"Yes, I am."

"Are you liking it so far?"

"Yes, I think I made some friends," she gave him a small yet sincere smile. She was somewhat happy about it, but she wasn't sure how to express herself. That, and she was also too embarrassed to express herself fully in front of a stranger. He just smiled in return.

"Anyway, good luck for the rest of the exam. I hope you become a good Hunter one day, I'll be rooting for you," he ruffled her hair a little, "maybe you can treat me to some food when I become old and unable to look after myself," he laughed whole heartedly before going back inside after Himeko thanked him once again. Himeko then made her way back to the two boys who were eagerly waiting for her arrival. She handed them the food before walking away without saying a word. Although Killua considered this a challenge, she just did it to prove a point that stealing shouldn't be an option. But before she could leave, Gon stopped her.

"Wait Kou, let's eat together!" He smiled at her. Seeing his smile, she just couldn't refuse his request and ended up joining the boys. The three of them found a spot near a window where they sat down and started eating the food in silence. "You are really good at dealing with people, Kou," Gon broke the silence. She stopped chewing and looked at him before swallowing her food.

"Oh, you mean what happened back then?" She asked before shooting Killua a glare, "It's called being nice, you should try it some time!"

There was another long silence. They've all known each other for a day, and although they've been through a lot of mishap, they hardly knew anything about each other. Well, they only knew a little about Gon who willingly told them about his motives for becoming a Hunter but other than that, they didn't even know Killua's or Himeko's full names.

"You said you wanted to find your dad. What is he like?" Killua asked Gon.

"I don't know," he answered, leaving the other two dumbfounded. "But I know he's a Hunter. Aunt Mito said that he left me on Whale island with her when I was still an infant. I want to find out what it's like being an Hunter. If he chose to leave me for so many years for being a Hunter, then being a Hunter must be exciting. I want to meet him!"

_"He's really positive. If I were him, I'd bear a grudge for being abandoned. His father probably doesn't know how to face his son anymore,"_ Himeko thought.

"What about you? I've never heard much about you two. What are your parents like?" Gon looked, hinting that she should maybe start off by opening up to them a little more.

"Me?" she asked, before looking out of the window at the sea of stars in the sky. She then pointed up, out of the window, "My parents should be up there somewhere. They were killed along with all the other relatives living with me. I'm pretty much the only one who got out alive."

Although Gon finally knew something about her now, he couldn't help but feel regretful for asking her something like that. He finally understood why she was so hesitant to open up to them. It must have been hard for her to bring something like that up. "I'm sorry I asked."

"No, it's okay," she shrugged off emotionlessly. "I would have told you sooner or later, so it makes no difference."

"Is that why you're good at dealing with people like that man from before?" Killua asked.

"Yeah, pretty much. I was penny less afterwards, and had to take care of myself," she started to tell, "It was hard at the start, but now I'm quite good at manipulating adults, although I wouldn't call that a skill. Besides, I'd rather beg and kiss up to someone than scoop low enough to steal something." She then looked at Killua, "It's your turn to answer Gon's question."

He sighed and gazed out of the window, looking down at the city lights in the night. They looked like stars shining brightly in the pitch black sky. Gon looked outside in awe, "The view looks so pretty."

"I'm used to seeing this view," Killua started off, "We travelled a lot by airship."

"Are you some kind of rich kid?" Himeko asked.

"You could say it's something like that," he answered, "My folks specialise in assassination."

"Both of them?" Gon asked innocently, causing Killua to burst out laughing. He wasn't exactly used to that kind of answer, you could say that he had never heard anyone respond to him like that before.

"Is that really your first reaction?" He asked him still in tears due to all that laughter, "People would usually ask whether I'm serious, or walk away from me when I tell them this." But that was just Gon. Looking at Himeko though, her reaction wasn't the same as Gon's, neither did she seem as amused by Gon's comment as Killua. She wasn't afraid of Killua now that he had finally told them the truth, but at the same time she wasn't to impressed by the sudden news either.

"Does that mean you are part of this so called family business?" She asked him, wanting to judge whether he was truly a threat to her or not. Although Gon didn't feel threatened by Killua, it didn't mean that she didn't.

"I used to," he admitted honestly, which Himeko respected. He then continued, "To be honest my parents have high hopes for me take over the business out of all my siblings in the future. You can say those are some killer expectations they had," he chuckled a little at his own joke, "Is there anything else you want to ask?"

"No. That's all," she lied. She had a lot of questions for him, but it wasn't the right time to ask him. She held it in and kept eating, hearing Gon curiously ask him more questions which Killua seemed more than happy to answer. They kept eating until Killua felt a presence close to them, as if someone was watching them. He turned around but nothing was there. He turned his attention back outside the window, but he immediately turned back around when he felt that presence again, only to see the Chairman standing right behind them.

"Do you kids want to play a game?" He asked out of boredom. Seeing how all three of them were still children, he was hoping to get all three of them to agree. However, although Gon looked like he didn't mind playing a game to kill time, Killua and Himeko still had their guards up, not trusting him. He didn't give up though and tried to convince them further, "If you beat me, I'll immediately provide you with a Hunter license."

"Wow, you can actually do that?" Gon asked in astonishment, wondering whether they had just hit a jackpot.

"Of course I can," he answered proudly, "I'm the Chairman after all."

_"Talk about irresponsible…"_ Killua and Himeko thought, seeing how the Chairman remained persistent.

"Come on, a little game wouldn't hurt anyone," he continued to convince then and the trio eventually agreed. Who knows, if they managed to beat him then they wouldn't have to continue the exam. He led the trio into an empty training room and picked up ball from the side. He then turned to them, "I'll explain the rules. Your task it to get this ball from me. You can attack me however you want but I won't attack you."

It sounded a lot easier than it actually was going to be, and hearing the challenge from the Chairman, Killua couldn't turn it down. He was the first one to step forward, accepting Chairman Netero's challenge with confidence. Netero's eyes were on the teen, who started to slowly circle him, one step at a time. But Killua's real motives became much clearer to him when he started leaving afterimages of himself behind, making it seem like he was multiplying. He wasn't too surprised seeing this technique for the nth time now, but for Killua to be able to use it at such a young age impressed him. Compared to Netero, Gon and Himeko were watching the scene in astonishment.

Gon's eyes followed the many Killua's circling around the Chairman, trying to figure out which one was the real one. _"Wow, how is he doing that?" _He wondered how Killua managed to pull such a trick off, or how he managed to learn something like that. Killua just stepped into the fight, but he already stole the show.

_"Who the hell is this kid?"_ Himeko thought with her eyes wide open, watching Killua's every move. In contrast to Gon, she wasn't exactly interested in knowing how the technique was done. He wasn't lying about being the heir to an assassin business, being this skilled at such a young age. She started to doubt whether she could even trust Killua now that he admitted being an ex-assassin. He looked pretty harmless at first glance, but he could be a walking time bomb just waiting to explode and take them all down with him. Even if he did change for the better, some things just ran in people's blood. If you give a child a knife, the child will somehow learn how to use it while growing up._ "Bad habits are hard to unlearn after all."_ But for now, she decided to keep quiet and focus on the match. If she managed to get the license earlier than expected, she would avoid a lot of trouble.

Killua then attacked from behind, trying to snatch the ball off the Chairman but he was able to dodge. His first attempt failed, but he tried again over and over again, failing each and every time. But one thing was for sure, Killua was very fast, especially when it came to fighting. They've only ever seen him run, but never in battle. It was probably an assassin trait he learnt to be so swift on his feet, and Netero couldn't help but become more amused each time he tried to strike. In the end, Killua's efforts were in vain.

Seeing the game picking up its pace, Gon who was standing on the sidelines started to get excited. He watched Killua attack, and Netero dodge each time, and just observing the match from the side made his body pump adrenaline around. Not being able to contain his excitement anymore, he called Killua who was in the middle of his match, "Hey, Killua! Tag me in!" Killua looked back, seeing Gon wave with anticipation. He slowly walked away from the centre and high-fived Gon, tagging him into the game. "Alright!" Gon pumped his fist with determination before replacing Killua.

Compared to Killua, Gon and Himeko didn't look like much of a challenge to Netero, but looks could deceive. It was one of the most important rules for Hunters to not trust anyone merely based on their looks. But seeing how excited Gon was compared to the other two made Netero anticipate to see how good Gon really was. Gon took a couple of steps back before using his feet to push him up into the air with full force. _"This kid is fast,"_ the Chairman thought as the pace of the match increased without warning. However, because he jumped off with too much force, Gon hit the ceiling and fell back down on his back

"You idiot!" Killua yelled from the side lines, "Think before using so much force to jump."

"Sorry," Gon apologised while rubbing his neck sheepishly. Surprisingly Gon took Killua's advice and tried again, this time carefully controlling the amount of force he put in his every attack. Noticing how easily Netero was able to dodge his attacks, Gon tried to build up some speed before trying his luck again. Netero dodged with his eyes closed, making Gon land flat on his face. _"He's too good!"_ Gon told himself, trying to get back on his feet. But no matter how hard the challenge was, he wanted to keep trying.

"Gon!" Before Gon could charge at him again, he heard Himeko call his name, "let me try!"

Her comment surprised Gon a little, especially since Himeko didn't seem like the type to participate in these kinds of games willingly. He'd have to drag her into it for her to actually agree. But at the same time it somehow made him happy to see her wanting to participate. "Okay!" He ran back to the side and tagged out.

In contrast to the boys who went before her, Himeko started to look around her surrounding. An empty room, no windows, no furnitures, white walls and a wooden floor. It was a typical training room, and she was standing right in the centre of it. The ceiling wasn't too high up, so it wouldn't take long for her to build up speed if she tried. But being in such a narrow space could also mean that she had to be careful if she were to jump around like Gon, especially since she wouldn't be able to stop after gaining too much speed.

"I'd appreciate it if you thought a little faster," the Chairman popped her thinking bubble, trying to test her patience, "this is why I like fighting men. Women think way too much."

Though she knew that he was just trying to provoke her, his statement still struck a nerve. _"Whatever, I'll just go with the flow today."_

Not giving it much thought afterwards, she repeated Gon's example and pushed of the ground and jumped into the air at an intense speed. The Chairman kept a close eye on her movement, _"She's quite fast too,"_ he thought,_ "but she's still too slow." _However, instead of crashing into the ceiling like Gon did, she used her legs to push her off the ceiling and her arms reached out for the ball. The Chairman managed to dodge as per usual, gripping tightly onto the ballbut, she landed on her feet and used them to push her off again into the sky and pushed herself off the ceiling using her feet again.

"The same trick won't fool me twice," he thought and simply dodged again. She landed on her hands this time round and tried to kick him from behind. He managed to dodge once again.

_"He's tough!"_ she thought. _"But then again, I'd be surprised if he was easy to beat. He's the Chairman of the Hunter's Association after all. I doubt I'm at the level to beat him yet, but I still want to try and touch that ball at least." _She proceeded to take off her shoes before throwing aside to continue her match more seriously. As she planted her feet into the ground, everyone noticed something different. When she pushed off this time around, the rate at which she was going was a lot higher. Not only that, but the was a footprint left where she jumped off from, telling them how much strength she must have used. She tried the trick she used earlier and pushed off the ceiling and kept going until she built up a decent amount of speed before charging at the Chairman. Though the Chairman didn't expect her to be this quick, he just found this situation rather fun. After giving her a mischievous grin, he moved his body to one side, making Himeko hit the wall after not being able to stop.

This was getting no where; or that was what Killua thought. Gon on the other hand was impressed by how strong both of his new friends were, so he wasn't too concerned about it. Although Himeko was faster than Gon, she only used one technique over and over again and it became too easy to read now. "Hey, tag me in!" Killua shouted from the side lines. Himeko stopped, noticing that her match was starting to become rather long and draggy. After picking up her shoes, she walked past Killua and took his place next to Gon.

When Killua got to the middle of the room, the Chairman decided to make another proposal, "How about all three of you attack me all at once?" He suggested. Since all three of them had no success individually, attacking as a whole team might actually work in their favour. Without giving it much thought, they started off by charging at him from different directions, but the Chairman was able to dodge all three of them, making them crash into each other.

"Would you mind watching where you are going?" Killua immediately snapped, rubbing his temples.

Himeko stood back up on her feet in irritation, "why don't you watch where you are going?" she shot back at him. "It wasn't just my fault, why would I even willingly crash into you?"

Not being able to think of a good comeback on the spot, Killua tried his best to come up with one. "Well, you smell!"

"Ha, ha, ha," Himeko faked a laugh before crossing her arms, "how old do you think you are? Six?"

"Guys!" Gon intercepted them, separating the two before the argument could escalate any further. "We have to work together if we want to win!"

"Gon is right," Chairman Netero agreed, "you'll get no where if you fight the way you do right now. It's getting you no where, and it's just entertaining me."

Killua and Himeko looked at each other and sighed at the same time, "Let's just work together this once," Himeko suggested.

"Okay," Killua gave Gon a look of defeat, "Just this once!"

Gon smiled in satisfaction before leading the way, attacking with Killua following him right behind. They attacked from both sides, but the Chairman just ducked, which made the boys crash into each other. Thinking that the Chairman was off guard, Himeko used Gon and Killua to push herself off. This was the closest she ever came to the ball, and she reached out her arms in hopes of obtaining it. The Chairman hugged the ball tightly, and moved to the side, causing Himeko to crash into the same wall she crashed into earlier. They started off hopeful, thinking that they'll get somewhere as a trio but their teamwork was just off. None of the three actually worked as a team before, so their brain still tried to work independently. In the end, all their effort was no use at all.

At one point, Himeko eventually stopped attacking and sat the fight out. She decided to put her shoes back on, and seeing that the boys also stopped. They questioned her sudden change in mood. "I'll give up," Himeko informed them, so they knew that they could keep attacking Netero as much as they wanted.

"Ehh?" Gon exclaimed in surprise, not wanting her to stop playing with them. "Why?"

She pointed at the Chairman who was still not breaking a sweat. "Have you seen us? We are a mess but he's neither sweating nor out of breath. We can keep going for a year and still not get close to the ball. He hasn't even used one of his legs and one of his arms yet, and we couldn't even get the ball with three pairs of hands and legs."

"You're quite a sharp one," the Chairman complimented her. Gon turned to see Chairman Netero in the same position he was in right at the beginning, and he hasn't moved an inch for hours.

"Either way, I'm going to go and catch some sleep before morning," she informed them before starting to walk out of the room. "If I don't, then I'll end up falling asleep while walking." Himeko didn't hesitate a moment to walk out of the room, leaving the two boys and Netero alone. As soon as she left, Gon started taking a closer look at the foot imprints made by Himeko, being quite impressed to see how deep they were. Since the Chairman was in the room with them, he decided to ask him instead of asking Killua like he usually did.

"How did she manage to leave such imprints in the floor?" He asked curiously, pointing at one of them on the floor and another left on the ceiling. "They are quite deep too!"

"She used quite a lot of force to push herself off, so it just left an imprint," the Chairman explained looking around his personal training room, "But I have to get this room fixed again now. Too bad, it had only been two weeks since the previous repairs."

While Netero was thinking about all the repair costs, hoping the Hunter's Association wouldn't screw at him again, Gon was still not content with the answer he got from him. "But I didn't leave any imprints although I used all my energy."

"She might have been training for quite a long time to achieve such strength in her legs," he informed Gon, "it would take a long time, especially for someone with little knowledge about any sorts of martial arts like her. To be honest, I was quite surprised myself since she's so young."

"That's amazing," Gon blurted out, still amazed by how strong Himeko must have been. But then again, Himeko wasn't the only one that managed to steal the show for him.

Now that Himeko left, Netero turned to the remaining boys, "Do you boys want to continue?"

"Yes, I want to!" Gon replied brimming with enthusiasm. However, Killua didn't feel as determined as him anymore.

"I'll pass!" He stated, which upset Gon a little. Killua also thought it was pointless trying if they weren't going to get anywhere the ball. He decided to leave the room too after bidding them goodbye. Once Killua left the room, Gon curiously asked the Chairman about Killua's ability which he used right at the start.

"It's a technique used by people in the Underworld," the Chairman started to warn him, "You're better off not knowing of it!"

"Those two sure are amazing aren't they?" Gon's voice trailed off, before he sneakily snatch the ball away, but he failed as Netero easily saw through his trick. They decided to continue their game, with Gon wanting to make Netero use his other hand at least. It didn't matter how long it was going to take him, he had all the energy in the world.

While Gon was busy continuing his game, Killua was on the way back from the training room. But looking at him closer, there was something off about him. His hands were shaking, eyes were twitching and he could only swallow his own saliva in the hopes of moistening his dry throats. The sweat running down his back, drenching his clothes made him take his tank top off in order to cool off. His heart rate quickened, and the blood was gushing through all inches of his body. He knew this feeling all too well, this light, tingling sensation in his, the adrenaline rushing through his body, the need to dig his fingernails into flesh. He was lusting for blood, but although this sensation wasn't new to him, he still hasn't found a way to control this hunger.

_"That was close,"_ he thought, trying to keep his breathing steady,_ "If I stayed in there for a little longer, I might have accidentally killed that old man."_

Whilst walking quietly, he encountered two men who walked past him. Killua accidentally bumped into them, but right now there was nothing on his mind other than his loss to the Chairman. He ignored them, and kept walking trying not to accidentally stir up any unwanted trouble. It was difficult, but he tried the best to control the monster inside of him, craving the murder of one, two or maybe three people.

"Hey brat," one of the two men called him back, "aren't you going to apologise?"

Killua couldn't take it anymore. In order to get over his frustration, he had to kill them with his bare hands. With his knife like fingernails, one direct hit was all it took for them to fall dead to their knees. He looked back at the corpses of the two applicants before he continued walking. After all, he couldn't afford to be spotted at the scene of his crime. Killua continued making his way down the empty corridors and once he spotted Himeko looking out of a window, he slowed down. Was he stable enough to approach her, or was his craving still not satisfied? He gave it a thought before proceeding. After all, he didn't want to accidentally kill one of Gon's friends.

Killua quietly approached her, and it took her some time to hear his quiet footsteps. But once she heard someone getting closer, her eyes instantly travelled from the city lights to whoever the footsteps belonged to. She let out a sigh of relief, seeing as it was someone familiar, but then she noticed that Gon wasn't with Killua. Killua was all by himself. Knowing this, she put her guard back up not being able to trust someone who once belonged to the assassination business.

"Yo!" He greeted her, to which she replied with just one nod, acknowledging his presence. At that moment, he found it amusing to see her so stiff; it made him feel more dominant. Despite that, he continued to walk towards her and sat beside her on the bench before looking out of the window, staring at the bright city lights. Seeing how comfortable Killua had gotten, Himeko stood up and sat on the windowsill in front of him. She didn't feel safe sitting right next to him, especially upon examining him closer.

"Did you hurt yourself? You smell like blood!" Himeko asked him, seeing spots of dried blood on his hand.

"Yeah," he lied, "I hurt my hand."

Himeko continued to examine him further. _"His pupils are dilated, and he took off his shirt," _she looked at the tank top Killua held in his hand, soaked in sweat to confirm her suspicion. _"Sweat? He wasn't sweating this much back in the training room. An adrenaline rush?"_ she questioned, glancing at his hand that was supposedly hurt,_ "and he definitely doesn't have a wound on his hand, unless it isn't his blood." _Himeko gulped, not wanting to imagine where that could have possibly come from. When she looked back up, she got startled seeing how Killua was staring straight back into her eyes. He didn't have that look in his eyes before, and it made her question him. She suddenly remembered what she thought about Killua earlier on the day. _"He might have quit, but it would still run through his blood. Bad habits are hard to unlearn after all." _Nothing would be confirmed until the Chairman makes an announcement about dead passengers, and bringing the topic up wouldn't be smart of her either. She decided to pretend not to have noticed anything, and act dumb, "I see."

He didn't seem to have bothered to hide it from her either, so she wondered whether this was just a prank to try and scare her. This was Killua after all, so it was very possible. She continued to act cautious around him, waiting for him to eventually come to his senses. The shaking in his hands decreased, and Killua finally got complete control over himself again. "Was there something you wanted to ask me while we were with Gon?"

Seeing how he was back to his sane self, she felt a lot safer talking to him now knowing that one wrong wouldn't end up in her dead. She answered truthfully this time, wanting to finally clear that one doubt lingering around in her mind. "Yes"

"Go on," he said, curious about what she wanted to ask him so badly. "What is it?"

"Have you ever heard the name Inoue before?" Himeko carefully watched any sudden changes in facial expressions, or any other changes in body language Killua made.

"Inoue?" He asked, thinking back to whether he had actually heard of that name before.

"Has your family ever come across the Inoue clan before?" She repeated the question again for him, "From four years ago."

Killua thought about it again before answering her, "No, we did not get a request to assassinate an Inoue clan, if that's the answer you're looking for." Hearing Killua's response, and seeing how there was no signs of him lying set her mind at peace. This one question would have changed their relationship; not that it was great to begin with. Although she still did not trust Killua fully, she saw that he was telling the truth. He could potentially be an enemy, but he wasn't her enemy. Besides, Gon seemed to be quite fond of him so now that her doubts were cleared, she did not care anymore. But the sudden relieved look on her face got Killua interested. "Say, if I did know of this Inoue clan, what would you have done."

Killua noticed her expression darken, "I would have had to kill you!"

* * *

**A/n -** Merry Christmas ~


	7. Escape the Trick Tower

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 6**

_Escape the Trick Tower_

_..._

"I would have had to kill you!" Himeko was being dead serious, no more jokes. For Killua, this was quite an unusual sight to see. She was starting to show her true colours, and she was definitely not the misunderstood twelve year old everyone thought she was. Himeko was seeking vengeance, that was the reason she wanted a license so badly, and it was definitely not to read a library full of off-limit books. Whatever it was though, the kill being mentioned made Killua's murderous lust come back, and he had to control his urge to rip something apart by digging his claws deep into the chair. But this time around, his blood lust didn't last too long. He knew his own family too well, and just the thought of Himeko coming after them made him scoff. She wouldn't even stand a change against their watchmen, so her wanting to kill him and his family was just amusing to him. However, he was the only one who found this whole situation funny, but Himeko wasn't too impressed. "You weren't involved, so just forget about what I asked you," she said, before getting off the windowsill she was sitting on.

Seeing how she was getting ready to leave, Killua too stood up from the bench he was sitting on. "It's my turn to ask the questions now," he stated before Himeko got an opportunity to leave.

"You aren't entitled to know anything," Himeko replied, "neither is there a need for me to tell you anything."

"Then answer at least one question. The survivor of the Inoues, that is you, right?"

"If you know the answer to your own question, then is there really a point in asking?" She questioned him, sighing at the fact that he was keeping her there for longer, "I gave this one away already, so I won't lie about it. I'm from the main branch of the Inoue clan. My full name is Himeko Inoue."

"And you're doing the Hunter exam so you can find the murderers?" Killua knew the answer to his own question, yet he chose to ask her again. But this time around, Himeko just remained silent, not wanting to give him an answer he already knew. He went on to try and summarise the little information Himeko already knew about the murderers. "You don't know who killed them, but you think that someone could have hired assassins to do the job for them?" She gave that one away already, so once again she didn't feel the need to answer."You know, for someone to hire assassins someone must have hated your folks."

"I know!" She snapped at him, clenching her fists in frustration. As far as she remembered, her clan was pretty peaceful. If they were part of the mafia, she would have understood why someone would have wanted to assassinate them, but there was nothing like that. The Inoues remained to themselves, and pretty much the only arguments where amongst clan members. But thinking about it, Killua could be right. From a young age, she was told to excel in her studies, but she grew up knowing little about the real world. She was naive and ignorant to anything that happened around her, but she was very young back then so she didn't exactly want to blame herself for that either. The possibility of her clan members doing something unacceptable behind her back still remained open, and seeing how her father was always working made her doubt what he was doing all those years.

Killua saw her deep in thoughts, and it was a sign that he got his message across. "At least you know."

"Are you going to keep asking questions?" She raised a brow, "If that's all you wanted to say, I'll be on my way."

"You don't trust me, do you?" Killua asked before she could leave.

Himeko glanced back, "At least you know," she said, "I don't trust a lot of people, so don't worry, you are still part of the majority." For now, Killua was off her suspect list but that wasn't enough to relieve her. She still had to find the criminals that did, and besides, she still didn't know Killua's motives to join the Hunter exam. Meanwhile, Gon who was still up against the Chairman managed to make him use his right hand and collapsed on the floor right after. With that, the whole airship was finally asleep and waited for the long night to come to an end.

When it was eight am, and the airship finally safely at its destination. Upon further inspection, the airship dropped them off on top of a tall tower. Forty examinees exited the airship and there was an announcement made about two of them being found dead, and the cause was unknown. After the announcement, there was a moment of panic amongst the remaining candidates as they all wondered what the cause was. To avoid further panic, Beans made sure to not mention the fact that both men were indeed murdered, but that didn't stop people from suspecting Hisoka who had been in the spotlight since the start of the exam. Himeko on the other hand found herself staring at Killua, wondering whether that was the blood he had on his hands last night. But the fact that he looked like nothing happened made her doubt herself. She was disturbed looking at how calm he was after committing two perfect murders, but that brought up the fact that he used to do these kinds of things for a living.

Once the crowd had managed to calm down, the next challenge was explained. "You have seventy-two hours to get down this tower." But that was all they were told. Gon and the others decided to walk towards the edge of the tower to check how far up they really were. They came to a safe conclusion that jumping down was out of the question, and so was climbing down, unless you had a death wish of course. That being said, they watched one of the fellow examinees try his luck and climbing down. Though he mentioned being a professional rock climber, it didn't prevent him from being caught by a couple of giant birds and taken away. The tower wasn't just very high up, they also had potential predators lurking around, waiting for a human to lower their guard.

The five soon decided to split up, and went around to try and find a way to get down. After examining each and every corner of the tower, Leorio, Kurapika and Himeko met up to discuss their findings.

"Have you two noticed, the number of contestants left has decreased," Kurapika pointed out, and not having noticed it before, the other two looked around and quickly did a head count to see how many of the candidates actually remained. There were forty people at the beginning including them, but now there weren't that many left, so Kurapika was right. They figured that they couldn't have just jumped down or tried to climb down, after seeing how pointless that really was.

"I gave it some thought," Himeko started off, "Seventy-two hours, that's the time they gave us to get down. Even if climbing down was an option, I doubt it would take anyone this long. There must be some internal way to get down." Though they decided to split up and search around the area, Himeko ended up thinking more than she searched. She didn't have evidence to back her theory up, but in her eyes that was the most logical explanation here. Not just that, now that Kurapika mentioned the sudden disappearance of so many candidates, she thought that her theory might even be true.

"You mean like a hidden passage?" Leorio asked, looking around the area once more. He did another head count, and the number of examinees had decreased yet again.

"Precisely!"

"I was thinking the same thing," Kurapika ended up agreeing with her theory. While the trio was busy thinking of possible locations for their so called hidden passage theory, Gon interrupted their conversation as he run up to them. Behind him, Killua was walking at a much slower speed.

"Hey guys, over here!" Gon called the them over, before leading the way to a spot "Watch this," he said before putting pressure on a few tiles, leading to a small passage to open and then shut of immediately with metal bars. Gon and Killua seemed to have found one of the secret passage Himeko, Kurapika and Leorio were talking about.

"So, only one person per passage, huh," Kurapika thought, seeing how there was no way for anyone else to enter the passage after it was closed off. "That makes things more clear now, but now we have to go looking for more."

"We found more around here," Killua added as soon as Kurapika finished, "Five to be exact." They didn't exactly know whether they should be considered lucky, so far things were moving pretty smoothly. Gon and Killua walked over to the spot Killua mentioned, and they pointed at five different spots. They split up and moved in front of one of the five passages each.

"They are all so close together," Leorio pointed out, now that everyone was positioned in front of a flap, "What if some of them are traps?"

"Then we just can't bear hard feelings," Kurapika said keeping a level head. But majority of them hoped that they wouldn't be the ones jumping down the trap doors. Gon on the other hand hoped that all five of them would end up going through the right passage. "We can just try again next year if we don't get through this time," Kurapika pointed out with a smile. There was nothing else they could do after all, if they didn't make it then it was just bad luck. They'll have to suck it up and try again the following year. The group took their positions before looking at each other and saying their farewells. "Let's see each other again at the bottom of the tower."

All five simultaneously jumped into the passageways and fell down into an empty room. But when everyone looked up, they realised they were still together.

"Well, that was a short farewell!" Kurapika pointed out, seeing how everyone managed to make it.

"Isn't that great?" Gon beamed, "We'll all make it that means!"

Once they were settled down, they shortly roamed around the room only to find six watches neatly laid out in a circle along with a note next to it. _'Majority votes. The game will start once there are 6 members,' _it read. Not having any other choice left, they each put a watch on before securing it. All they could do now is wait for someone to miraculously fall down so they could start. A couple of hours passed and the five were sitting around trying to pass time. While Killua and Gon found ways to preoccupy themselves with, the other three just sat in each corner, waiting for something to happen. They wondered whether someone would actually find their way down eventually, and how much time they would have left afterwards to actually complete the task ahead.

"It's been really long. Whoever is still up there must be really stupid," Killua complained, as he too was starting to grow tired of waiting. Just as he finished his sentence, they could hear noises from above, as if someone found a way down. It was a faint knocking noise, and whoever it was must have come to the conclusion that there must be something underneath the floor based on how hollow the knocks were. The knocking continued, while the five waited for the last person to finally decide to jump down the trap door. Only moments later, a figure fell down. They decided to get closer, to see who joined their group only to be disappointed. It was Tonpa.

_"Oh great, it's this guy,"_ everyone except for Gon thought. Nonetheless, they just sighed and explained the rules to him. After handing him the left over watch, he put it on and the first question appeared on the screen.

_'Do you want to proceed?'_

The group of six looked at each other, wondering whether they really needed to answer such an obvious question. But not wanting to waste any more time, they turned to their watches and chose a response. Once all six of them chose an answer, the results appeared on the screen.

5 x O

1 x X

The door opened.

Although the door opened for them, they found an issue with whoever decided to press the wrong response. "Who pressed X?" Leorio asked furiously, his eyes automatically turning to Tonpa as he would be the only one to pull such a stunt off.

"Oops, sorry. I pressed the wrong button," Tonpa smirked, not being sorry at all. Kurapika proceeded to walk through the door not wanting to waste his breath on Tonpa, and Gon followed. He didn't find an issue with it, after all the door did end up opening. Leorio stomped through the door, still ranting about having someone like Tonpa in his group, much to his amusement. Tonpa was doing this to get on their nerves, and it was obviously working with Leorio.

"Tsk," Himeko clicked her tongue, "idiot," she muttered under her breath before joining the others on the other side of the door. Her response once again satisfied Tonpa, knowing that he managed to get on her nerves. But when he turned to see who remained with him, his body stiffened. He remembered running into Killua three times before, but that was back in the waiting area of the tunnel, and after the impression he got from Killua, he didn't dare to go near him again.

"It better be an accident, if this happens again then-" Killua stopped right there and smirked, knowing that Tonpa would have got his point. Once he walked past the door, Tonpa was the only one remaining behind still having the image of Killua in his head.

_"This kid is dangerous,"_ Tonpa gulped. While all six of them continued through the maze, Tonpa continued to press the wrong answers. Although majority shrugged it off as nothing, and Killua kept giving him warnings, he still continued. At one point, Leorio couldn't hold back his anger in anymore.

"Stop trying to piss us off!" He screamed at Tonpa, who just snickered at him in return. Tonpa found this situation truly amusing, and in a way it was payback for seeing through his trick at the start of the exam. But at one point felt glad that Gon saw through his juice trick and that they all managed to come this far. Nothing is worse than failing after coming so far after all, so if he managed to at least rile them up, make them fight so they all end up failing, that was more than enough for him.

"Ignore him, Leorio!" Kurapika tried to calm the elder teen down.

"How can I?" Leorio questioned him angrily, "He is intentionally messing with us."

"Even if he is messing with us, there are still 5 of us who can push the right button and it won't make a difference," Killua explained.

"He's right!" Himeko ended up agreeing with Killua's response, "we'll make it out sooner if we complain less, and the sooner we make it out of here the less time we have to deal with him. Just think of it like this, focus now so we don't have to see this pig again."

"Pig?"

"Oh, right. Pardon me, I accidentally offended pigs in the process." She was giving Tonpa a taste of his own medicine by trying to rile him up, but he managed to see through that and calmed down. Instead, he was expecting Leorio to make a comeback, but seeing the frustrated Leorio continue walking with no other words, Tonpa just stuck his tongue out at him. Eventually, no one cared about what Tonpa did anymore and all they did was continue trying to find their way out while trying to keep Leorio calm. But then, the ended up at a dead end and couldn't go any further. They came across a platform in the middle of what seemed like an endless abyss. One the other side were six masked people. One of them took his mask off to reveal his face before stepping forward.

"We've been hired to test you applicants," the bald man announced. Based off his looks, the man looked pretty strong. His tall, muscular had some scars on it, telling them that he was an experienced fighter. He continued to explain their task, "To get past here, you have to fight the six of us. These fights are one to one and you can only fight once. To win, four of you must win your individual matches. I'll be the first one to fight so pick someone from your side."

"Oh man, I told you we should have taken the left turn instead," Leorio complained.

"That path might have been harder than this," Himeko pointed out, before they all started thinking. There was no other way around, and going back would be a waste of time. Knowing that at least some of them had some experience in fighting, they decided to proceed. Everyone except Tonpa got together to discuss the order. Gon volunteered to go first, but Leorio pointed out the obvious difference in size between Gon and the muscular man. Kurapika would be at a disadvantage if he had his weapons taken away from him. Since Himeko herself didn't have any weapons on her, Leorio suggested that she should remain behind too just to be safe. In the end, Killua volunteered to go before Tonpa stopped him.

"I'll go first," Tonpa volunteered suddenly, throwing everyone around him off guard. They all looked at him, dumbfounded. Tonpa caused nothing but trouble on the way, so they wondered whether he was actually trying to help them this time around.

"You?" Himeko was the first one to raise her brow in suspicion. She didn't want to buy it, especially since he made it his mission to get them to fail. Whatever his true intentions were, she didn't want to just stand back and let Tonpa ruin her chances to pass the Hunter exam this year, and she was sure that everyone else agreed with her.

"Why not?" Tonpa asked her in response, "I'll act as a guinea pig for you all. If you observe how this works, you'll have a better chance to win. Consider it as an apology for everything I've done until now."

"He's got a point," Kurapika pointed out. Although Himeko didn't believe his last point, she ended up backing down. Tonpa was the most useless one out of them indeed, so she'd rather have him go first and mess up than anyone else. Gon, Killua and Kurapika were valuable fighters, and only four of them had to win in order to continue. If she were to include herself, that would make four. Leorio too was surprisingly smart when it came to certain things, so he could be useful too depending on the task.

"Then it's decided!" Tonpa stated before making his way towards the platform in the middle.

"Are you sure it's going to be fine?" Leorio asked the rest, still having doubts in Tonpa.

"Even if he gets killed, at least he won't get in the way anymore." Killua shrugged, only to get told off by Gon for thinking so negatively.

On the platform the man and Tonpa got ready to fight. He was called Bendot, a prisoner who received a 199 years sentence for murder and robbery. Each of the challenges would be chosen by the prisoners, so that at least told them that not everyone would choose hand to hand combat. But in this case, Bendot decided on hand to hand combat, something he specialised in. Trick tower wasn't just a long, never ending maze; it was also a prison. The prisoners were promised to get years off their sentences according to how long they could hold the examinees off, which explained why they willingly obeyed the words of the Hunter Association and got involved in the exam. Once he finished explaining the rules, Bendot prepared to attack while Tonpa surprisingly just stood there not trying to defend himself. Bendot approached Tonpa ready to throw a punch, when suddenly he fell on his knees.

"I surrender!" Tonpa started begging on his knees, confusing everyone with his actions. Bendot stared, but he eventually started to back off since Tonpa surrendered and he had won the fight. He returned to the opposite end while Tonpa returned to five examinees who were staring daggers at him. He didn't look apologetic at all, he seemed rather proud of his actions.

"So you were tricking us after all!" Leorio yelled, grabbing him by the collar.

"Guys, we shouldn't be fighting right now!" Gon tried to calm him down.

"I'm glad he surrendered," Kurapika interjected, confusing Gon, Leorio and Tonpa.

"What do you mean?" They all asked.

"That guy looks strong. Based on appearances I'm guessing he was part of the military once," Killua said while observing Bendot. "Not only that, his attack was aimed at his throat. Do you know what that means?"

"Their job isn't to beat us, they are here to hold us off. He would have crushed his throat first before slowly torturing him to waste time. He wouldn't even had a chance to surrender, so we would have seen you getting tortured for the remaining hours we had left." Himeko continued from where Killua left off.

Tonpa gulped and Leorio finally let him go, "I guess you're right." That reality check made Tonpa quieten down, while the others came up with the next person to go next. Before they managed to decide on the next challenger, the opposing team already send up their competitor. When the petite man took off his mask, it revealed his slim face with long brown hair that covered one of his eyes. He introduced himself as Sedokan, having received a 149 year sentence for being involved in serial bombing. Gon decided to go next, making his way towards the platform to hear his challenge.

"All we have to do is light these candles and wait to see which one goes out first. The person whose candle goes out first loses," Sedokan explained as he took out two candles. But to their surprise, one of them was significantly longer than the other, "Pretty simple right?" Gon nodded in response. "So, do you want the shorter candle or the longer candle?"

Gon eyed both the candles before turning to get a second opinion from his team members, "Which one should I choose guys?"

"Naturally you would choose the longer candle, right?" Leorio asked the others.

"Yeah, but what if they tampered with the longer candle?" Killua pointed out, not the trusting criminals. They were serving sentences for a good damn reason after all.

"They could have tampered with the short candle instead, thinking we'd choose the short candle believing that the longer candle was tampered with," Himeko proposed that this could all just be a simple trick to put them all off.

"But then again, we'd end back with choosing the long candle," Kurapika added. "We can go in circles like this all day!"

"Argh, all this reverse psychology is making my head hurt!" Himeko groaned, frustrated. "There could also be the possibility of neither of them being tampered with, and he just wants us to doubt ourselves."

While everyone else was still pondering on which candle to choose, Kurapika decided to trust Gon's instincts. His instincts did get them all this far after all. "Gon, you should trust your instincts and pick one," he told Gon, putting all his trust in him.

"Okay, I'll choose the longer one," Gon said as his team looked at him waiting for a logical reason. But this being Gon, there was no logical reason behind his choice, "It's longer so it should burn longer, right?"

Hearing this, Kurapika was the first to face-palm at his response, "This might be the first time his instincts might fail us..."

Sedokan threw the longer candle to Gon and they both lit them at the same time to start the match. At first, Gon had the upper hand but then halfway through the match, Gon's candle started burning faster as the flame suddenly grew bigger. Gon started to panic, seeing how there was little to no time left until his candle would burn out, and his team mates just worried hoping that Gon would soon find a way to turn things around.

"So the long candle had been tampered with after all," Leorio too started to panic, seeing how Gon had no clue on what to do next. They watched the hot wax melting away at a fast rate, and Gon trying to hold onto the candle without burning his fingers.

"No, both of them were probably tampered with," Kurapika concluded that there must have been a trick they didn't manage to catch, "he probably had another set of candles with him so he exchanged his one with one that wasn't tampered with." But knowing this now was pretty pointless. At the end of the day, Gon would have been in the same situation with both candles, so choosing the longer candle was indeed much smarter. Gon tried to slow the burning process down with no success but he then thought of an idea. He placed his own candle on the floor, and after seeing that the wind had no effect on it he ran towards his opponent and blew his candle out.

"If the flame is stronger, then it means it's less likely to blow out because of the wind," Gon beamed before leaving the platform victoriously, leaving his opponent awestruck. There was no rule against blowing out the opponents flame, especially since the match wasn't fair to begin with. But their celebration was cut short as the next opponent replaced the previous one. His large, bulky blue body was rather worrying, but Kurapika just calmly walked to the platform. The opponent took of his mask, revealing a frightening and distorted face. He introduced himself as Majitani, having received a 108 years sentence due to fraud and blackmail.

Majitani pointed at the ninety-nine hearts on his chest, "these are the number of people I've killed so far in my life. You will be my hundredth victim." Kurapika wasn't particularly interested in the history behind the tattoos and continued to prepare for the fight. Before they started to fight, Kurapika was told to throw away his weapons. He removed his blue tabard along with his weapons and they started to fight. Though his opponent was very muscular compared to Kurapika slim build, he was rather slow and not as strong as he made himself sound. However, at some point throughout the fight Kurapika noticed a large spider tattoo on the back of his opponent. His heart immediately started to race, staring at the black tattoo on Mijitani's blue body. Kurapika's blue eyes flashed a shade of scarlet red as his head started to feel light and all he could focus on was that spider tattoo on the prisoners back.

Kurapika's took slow, careful steps towards his opponent who was backing down seeing Kurapika's change in expressions. Kurapika looked possessed by something, his empty, scarlet eyes were staring at his opponent. He grabbed the big guy by the collar before giving him a punch that knocked him down to the floor. "I will tell you three things before I leave. One, to prove that you belong to the Phantom Troupe means you should have a number tattooed inside the spider. Two, they don't bother to keep up with the number of people they've killed. Three, don't speak of the Phantom troupe again, or I _will_ kill you." His opponent was still out cold from the punch and Kurapika made his way back to the team who were all surprised the amount of strength hidden inside that petite body of his.

"Say Kurapika, is it safe for us to be around you?" Leorio asked before cautiously approaching Kurapika. Kurapika walked past him and sat down on the floor against the wall, trying to cool his head. This wasn't like him, he wasn't the type to lose his temper so quickly. He managed to surprise himself with his sudden breakdown.

"I'm sorry about that," he apologised, seeing how everyone around him was worried. Gon and Himeko went to check up on him, and the pair knelt down on either side to see Kurapika's sweaty forehead. His opponent was surprisingly weak, yet Kurapika still ended up sweating thinking about the real Phantom Troupe.

"Are you okay?" Himeko asked him as he was still in deep thoughts. He gave her a small nod, while Gon took out a water bottle from his bag and insisted that he should take a sip or two to help him calm down.

"I knew he was a fake but I just couldn't control myself when I saw the tattoo on his back," Kurapika sighed in utter embarrassment, "Sometimes I get like that when I see real spiders too."

"Maybe we should keep him away from any spiders," Leorio whispered to Gon and Himeko to which they could only nod in agreement. Since Kurapika didn't kill his opponent, the victory wasn't granted to them yet. They had to wait for the opponent to surrender, however he was still unconscious. They tried waiting for a couple of hours before checking up on him. Leorio went ahead and checked the movement of his pupils, trying to check whether he was truly unconscious or just pretending. The next opponent stepped forward and they chose to start betting using the remaining hours they had left. Leorio betted that Mijitani was not unconscious, while his opponent betted that he was. Leorio was positive that Mijitani was still conscious after checking his eye movement and carried him over to the edge of the platform, threatening to drop him. It didn't take long for Mijitani to open his eyes and cowardly surrender before running back to the rest of his team.

Leorio's opponent decided to pull of the mask, and much to their surprise, she turned out to be a fairly attractive woman. She had magenta eyes and her long, pink hair was tied up into two big pigtails with yellow ribbons. Leroute was sentenced for 112 years for illegal gambling, and she proposed to gamble for their match. Leorio happily agreed having gambled quite a number of times in his life before, and Leroute proceeded to place her second bet. "Let's bet on whether I'm a woman or a man," she suggested.

_"But she's obviously a girl,_" everyone thought, once again examining her feminine body and soft facial features.

"Even if you claim to be a woman," Leorio pointed out, "there's no way to be sure."

A sly smile appeared on Leroute's face, "Well, you can search me until you're satisfied."

Knowing Leorio all too well, Kurapika just gave up any hope he had left in winning this round. "He's going to bet that she's a male," he commented.

"Yep!" Killua agreed immediately.

"Definitely!" Himeko sighed, doubting that they would be able to win this round.

"Huh? Why?" Gon asked.

Leorio thought about it, "I'll bet 10 hours on male."

"Just as I thought," Kurapika sighed.

"Perverted old man…" Killua added.

Himeko clenched her fist, "You're an enemy of all women!" she screamed. "Come back here and I'll teach you a lesson, lech!" She pumped her fist in the air while shouting before Killua covered her mouth.

"It's better to stop you now before something bad happens," Killua sighed while she was still struggling.

"How were you guys so sure about it?" Gon asked once again before Killua tried to explain it to him as simply as he could.

"Unfortunately for you, I'm actually a woman," she had a smug smile on her face.

Hearing that he was wrong, Leorio couldn't help but let out a lecherous smile, "Oh, darn it!"

_"Why does he look so happy about it…"_ Kurapika, Himeko, Tonpa and Killua thought.

"Huh? You're a girl?" Leorio faked a surprised look on his face, "I'll have to check myself to be sure!"

"You want to see for yourself?"

_"Oh boy, this is turning into an adult movie..." _Himeko sighed. Tonpa covered Gon's eyes just in time while Himeko just kept shouting. She turned to look at her teammates. "Besides, why are you perverts watching this?" She shouted, before giving them all a good beating on the head.

"Why are you overreacting?" Killua asked, still caressing that large bump on his head, "It's not like you're the one who's actually naked."

"Me? Why do you think I'm overreacting? I might fail the exam because a pervert is too busy examining a naked woman's body." She proceeded to shout at Leorio's opponent who just ended up ignoring her. "Don't you have any shame?" But that brought back the whole idea of her being in prison for a reason. Of course she must have been a piece of scum if she found herself inside Trick Tower.

"If we knew that this was a woman, we would've sent you instead. Or at least someone with a little more self control," Kurapika tried to calm her down. "Could you check whether they are done yet?" Once Leroute got dressed again, Himeko told everyone when it's alright to look again. After that whole scenario, they had a match of rock paper scissors. Eventually, Leorio's opponent won this round and he came back to his team, who was giving him dirty looks for dragging them all down.

"What's up with you?" Leorio asked Himeko who was hiding behind Kurapika.

"Don't play dumb, I have to take precautions around some of you now."

The current score was 2-2 and only two matches were left to go and Leorio looked at the two children who had to go up next. "Oh no, I should have won the previous match. With these two brats up next we'll definitely lose," Leorio frowned, comparing the sizes of Himeko and Killua with the remaining opponents.

"I certainly don't want to hear that from you!" Himeko yelled at him, reminding him that he was the reason they tied with their opponents.

"Perverted old man," Killua added, giving Leorio a judging look.

"Who is going to go first?" Kurapika asked, and Himeko and Killua looked at each other to decide who goes up next. They didn't exactly seem to mind as both had to go up eventually but to decide on the order fair and square they decided on a game of rock, paper, scissors.

"Rock, paper, scissors!" They said in-sync, before they both looked at the results in anticipation. Himeko chose scissors, while Killua had paper.

"Scissor cuts paper. I win!" She beamed before walking towards the platform.

_"I'll reserve the best for last then,"_ Killua shrugged, before he went to sit back down. Himeko's opponent also made his way to the platform and took off his mask. Compared to the men who went up previously, he was quite good looking. He had strong features, dark brows and his black hair was swept to one side. But as for fighting ability, he didn't seem like the type that could fight. He went with the codename Dos, and it was revealed that he received 156 years of jail sentencing for being involved in human trafficking.

"How disappointing, I must fight you young lady," he started off, by carefully analysing her features. "Black hair, dark blue eyes, a petite build, you could be sold for a heck load of money. Finding people with black hair and your shade of blue eyes is quite rare these days. Two children, no you would sell for the price of several children your age," his analogy was starting to creep the team out, but Himeko just remained silent. "Not just you, the boy with the blond hair, I noticed his beautiful scarlet eyes. Just one of those eyes would sell for a whole lot. The little boy who fought earlier seems quite skilled too. Some people tend to pay for skills over looks."

"That guy is giving me the creeps," Leorio cringed at his analogy. Himeko was still quite young, so hearing her opponent's sleazy statements gave him a bad taste in his mouth, despite him acting sleazy himself not so long ago. Nonetheless, he felt uncomfortable sending her up against someone like that. "Hey, Kou! If you don't feel comfortable fighting that creep, you can surrender. We can always try again next year, don't force yourself to fight him if you don't want to."

"He sounds more perverted than you, old man!" Killua commented, triggering an argument between him and Leorio.

"He is more dangerous than he looks," Kurapika told them, "We should hope this turns out right."

"Don't worry, Kou is really strong!" Gon reassured them with a smile, knowing how capable she truly was after that game with Chairman Netero. Although Gon looked confident with himself, Kurapika couldn't help but worry about her, Knowing neither Himeko's abilities nor Dos' abilities.

"What a shame indeed," Dos repeated once again with a frown, "Having to find such a pretty young girl while I'm in jail. You would have made me tons of money."

"Kou, Leorio is right," Kurapika heard enough from her opponent. He couldn't tell whether she was uncomfortable as her back was turned towards them, but Dos' words gave him a bad feeling. "If you don't want to fight him, then just come back. We won't be mad at you."

Hearing how concerned her team members were, she turned back to reassure them that her opponent didn't have much of an effect on her. "It's alright, I can manage to fight him." She then turned back to her opponent, "If you are just trying to waste time, it won't work on me," she pointed out.

"I'm not, I simply like to get to know my victims before getting started," he shrugged her accusation off, although it was pretty obvious that he was indeed just wasting everyone's time, "Go on, what's your name? You can call me Dos."

"I'm not obligated to tell you my name," she simply refused to tell a stranger her personal details.

"You may be wondering why I'm analysing you now. I always analyse humans when I encounter then for the first time," he began to explain, "I estimate how much they are worth before going after them, it turned into a habit now."

Himeko had figured that much out already and remained quiet as her face darkened, "what do you want me to do?" she asked as her patience was starting to get tested.

"Two minutes," he stated, showing her two fingers, "we each get two minutes to make our opponents surrender. Once two minutes are up, it's the other persons turn. We can use any method we like."

Himeko agreed with his method, "that's fine!"

But before he started the match, he decided to make the game more interesting for himself. "How about we increase the stakes? If I win, your fate will be decided by me." In other words, Dos was planning to continue his human trafficking business after getting out of jail. He was using this opportunity to lower his sentence and get out of prison just to continue his crimes.

"Huh?" Everyone else was starting to lose patience with him. His newest proposal just seemed utterly ridiculous to them, but before any of them could interrupt and convince Himeko to turn down the match, she already agreed with his terms. The fact that she hasn't already snapped at Dos' proposal surprised her team, and they couldn't tell whether she was out of her mind. Except for Gon and Killua, no one else had even seen her fight, and seeing that she is just a petite twelve year old with a very slim build worried everyone else.

"We'll decide the order by flipping a coin," Dos said, taking a coin out of his pocket. But before he could flip the coin to decide the order, Himeko stopped him.

"There is no need," she told him before sitting down on the floor, "You can start. Your two minutes start now!" Once again, Leorio and Tonpa were left wondering whether she was out of his mind. If she were to go first, she would have had two whole minutes to try and make her opponent surrender. All Dos could have done was try to defend himself, but instead she chose to sit two minutes out and wait for him to make the first move. _"He's a human trafficker,"_ Himeko thought calmly, _"he won't risk spoiling his goods." _She was fairly confident that Dos wasn't going to do anything to cause her injuries if he was planning to sell her out on the market later on, so she was sure that he wasn't going to use violence. Kurapika and Killua seemed to have figured that much out too, and just anticipated the method Dos was going to use against her.

The clock started to tick, and all Dos did was take out a small, silver, pocket watch. He held onto the metal chain, as the round watch started to swing side to side at a constant speed. "Focus on the watch," he instructed in a quiet, calming voice, seeing how Himeko's eyes eventually focused on his pocket watch just as he told her to. "In three seconds, you will be under my control," he continued before starting his countdown, "Three... two... one," On one, he suddenly stopped the watched from swinging around and watched Himeko's eyes blank out, just as he expected.

"Kou!" Leorio was the first one to yell out her name, hoping that she didn't actually fall for his trick. However, Himeko remained unresponsive. _"Damn it!" _He cursed.

"Looks like we didn't just fail the exam, the brat has also sold herself to him," Tonpa couldn't help but find this situation amusing, especially since Gon had so much faith in her. "She's ruined!"

"Why you!" Leorio was just about to punch him, only to be held back by Kurapika and Gon.

"Kou will be fine," Gon still hadn't lost faith in her and tried his best to convince the others to believe in her too, "she's smarter than that!"

"I hope you are right," Kurapika sighed, looking back at her sitting still on the platform.

"My name is Dos," Himeko's opponent introduced himself once again, "could you tell me yours?"

"H-himeko," she mumbled out loud. The fact that she looked so absentminded could only worry her teammates who were hoping that she was fine.

"He hypnotised her!" Leorio announced as he was finally starting to lose hopes in them winning this round, or at least Himeko safely returning home.

"Himeko, is it?" Dos continued to question her, "Now Himeko, why would a young lady such as yourself want to join the Hunter's exam. It's dangerous out here, wouldn't you rather be safely at home with your parents?"

"I don't have a home," Himeko answered in the same absentminded state, "my parents are dead. I have no home to return to. I want to find someone after becoming a Hunter."

"Is that so, Himeko?" He asked, seeing as she was starting to become more obedient, "why don't you join me?" He suggested, slowly walking towards her trying not to snap her out of her hypnotised state, "I will look after you, I will help you find whoever you are looking for. You don't have to go through the troubles of becoming a Hunter to do that. I am your friend, you can trust me. I will help you."

"Really?"

"Yes," Dos knelt down in front of her, "but I need your help too. In order for me to help you find whoever you are looking for, you have to surrender this match. You will do that for me, right? I am your friend, aren't I?"

"You are my friend?"

"Yes," he nodded, "Just say 'I surrender', and I will help you with whatever you want. You can rely on me, I will take care of you." He waited patiently for her to say those two words, and he reached for his pocket taking out a small needle. "Come on, say it." He held the needle between his fingers, waiting for her to surrender before he could attack her with it.

"Don't do it, Kou!" She heard Gon shout out from the side lines. Her team was anxiously waiting for the said two minutes to run out, hoping that she doesn't surrender before that.

"I su-," before Himeko could even finish her sentence, Dos wasted no time and went on to strike with the needle. However, before he could pierce the needle into her arm, she stopped him. "Time's up, my turn!" Her grip was tight, and she didn't plan to let go any time soon. Once Dos' time was up, her two minutes began. Due to her strong grip, Dos ended up letting go of the needle covered in some sort of sleeping drug.

"How did you-" Dos couldn't finish his sentence before Himeko slammed his face into the brick ground and continued pushing it down, not letting go. Incoherent mumbles could be heard from him as he was possibly trying to surrender, but as those were just mumbles the match was still in progress. While his head was still in the ground, she used her other hand to twist one of his arms before stepping on it. She could hear a shattering sound coming from his bones, and his muffled scream confirmed that she had managed to break his arm. She moved on to the other arm and one of his legs and repeated the process, making him scream in agony again.

"You've been sent to jail to repent for your sins out them, not to brag about them!" She said in disgust. "You destroyed the lives of so many people and you're bragging about it?" Not only did he ruin the lifes of so many children, he was also bragging about it in prison. Just the thought of it angered her. People like Dos didn't value human life at all, in contrast they treat abandoned children lower than animals. She lifted his head back up by his hair, and briefly looked at his shattered nose before pushing it back down with more force. She then let go so he could stand back down with the little energy he had left. His nose was broken, blood rushing down from it. His forehead was scrapped and his lips were bruised. She also noticed some missing teeth that must have been crushed. "People like you value your eyes so much, you won't be able to do anything with them."

Dos noticed how dangerously close her fingers moved towards his eyes, "please don't," he started to beg. She was being dead serious, he knew that she would gauge out his eyes if he didn't do something. "Please, I surren-" Himeko covered his mouth with her hand.

"I still have forty seconds left," she informed him, telling him that she had more than enough time to gauge out both of his eye balls before he could surrender. "Do you know how many times I was stepped on? Can you imagine the amount of times I was dragged up by my hair? Do you even know how much it hurt having an metal rod burn a permanent mark into your skin? I was only eight, or maybe nine, but people like you didn't care. You only cared about the money you received from me." Dos' eyes widened in fear, seeing her expression darken. "I've finally found one of your kind, why would I be nice enough to let you surrender when I have so long left."

"Kou, please stop this!" It was Gon. "He's willing to surrender, you have won the match." That's when she finally realised, she completely forgot that there were people still watching her. She let go halfheartedly and the match came to a conclusion after Dos was able to surrender. Once the match was over, she proceeded to carry her opponent who couldn't walk anymore over to his own side so Killua could start his match.

"How did you manage to snap out of the hypnosis?" He asked with the little energy he had left.

"I wasn't hypnotised by you in the first place," she answered, "you told me to focus on the watch, but I never did. You just assumed I did. Instead I was too busy counting down the two minutes in my head and focusing on the stain on your shirt." But when she was nearly over by his side, she dropped his body onto the ground. "Here, I was nice enough to pick up the shit that was lying around on the field," she told his fellow prisoners before walking back to her side of the field.

Meanwhile, Leorio and Gon were slightly confused on how she managed to snap out of her hypnotised state as they didn't hear Himeko's explanation, so Kurapika decided to explain it. "Hypnosis relies on many factors, some being trust, willingness and the main one being concentration," he started off, "Kou doesn't trust many people, her opponent being a prisoner made him a lot less trustable. That explains why Dos tried to gain her trust during his two minutes. The second factor is willingness to be hypnotises, and again she didn't want to be hypnotised by him. The main one is concentration-"

But before Kurapika could finish his explanation, Himeko decided to explain it herself, "I'm not stupid to actually focus on the pocket watch when he told me to. I made it look like I did, but I actually focused on a stain on his shirt while counting down the remaining time in my head. I pretended to be hypnotised to waste his time." Her head still hung low, knowing that her own rage would have ended up slowly killing her opponent if Gon hadn't stop her. Her mind was clouded and she couldn't think straight, it made her feel ashamed of herself. She completely forgot people were watching, and now she couldn't imagine what they would think of her. _"Great, they will think I'm some kind of monster too now,"_ she scolded herself, seeing how Leorio and Tonpa remained in a safe distance.

"Are you even human? You're a monster!" Tonpa started calling her names, and she shot him a glare hoping he wouldn't add more oil to the fire. "Are you going to kill me too, look at you glaring a me like that."

"Stop it, she's not a monster!" Gon defended her, immediately rushing to her side to check up on her, "Are you okay Kou?"

"You're sweating pretty badly, you should sit down for a while," Kurapika told her. He helped her sit down at the back while the others prepared to watch Killua's match. Killua cooly walked to the platform while his opponent seemed more than ready to fight him. His opponent was Johness the Dissector. He was given a 968 year sentence and even his fellow inmates seemed afraid of him as he walked up towards the platform. He was a serial killer who had over a hundred victims, all of them murdered with his own bare hands and ripped into shreds.

"So, what's the challenge?" Killua asked, seeing his opponent preparing to fight.

"Challenge?" Johness questioned in confusion, "I think you are misunderstanding this boy. This won't be a match but a one sided, brutal murder." Killua just let out a sigh and in a flash, he ripped out his heart. It was so quick, it looked so surreal. "... my heart, give it back!" He said before dropping dead. Killua placed the heart back into his hand before walking back. That concluded the matches, Gon's team won with four victories. Tonpa was on guard seeing Killua walk back. He knew something was off about him, and his match just confirmed his suspicion.

"You did it, Killua!" Gon cheered, seeing his friend come back in victory.

"Of course, I'm a professional," Killua started to brag proudly, "Compared to us, he's still an amateur."

"Oh, you guys don't know right?" Seeing everyone else look at Killua in confusion, Gon started to clear things up for them. "Killua is from an assassin family."

"Assassin?" Leorio screamed, before looking at Killua who started to explain how he ripped out his opponents heart. His fingernails adjusted into sharp claws that looked sharper than knives.

"See," he showed them, "My old man is much better than me though. He doesn't leave any blood behind when he does it."

After they won, a door opened. The team made their way back with Himeko and Kurapika right at the back. He was walking slowly since he wanted to ask her something. "Is there something on your mind, Kou?"

"Mhm..." She replied with a mumble, knowing that Kurapika would just judge her like everyone else did if he were to find out.

"It would take quite a few years to master such strength," he watched her walk quietly without giving him a proper answer. "I promise to keep it a secret!" He reassured her, "You got really angry back there. Did something happen to you in the past?" Seeing that he wasn't going to drop the topic any time soon, she decided to tell him why she got so angry when she was up against Dos. She felt like Kurapika had told her so much after trusting her, it just felt natural for her to tell him. Kurapika just listened to her talk, and he felt grateful when she finally managed to open up to him. He couldn't judge her for what had happened to her, it wasn't her fault after all. "Thanks for telling me, Kou," he thanked her.

She shook her head, "I should be thanking you for listening," she corrected him, "Thank you!"

"If there is anything on your mind, just remember that I'm here to listen," he informed her before looking ahead at Gon, "I'm sure Gon and the others feel the same way."

"To be honest, I'm too scared to tell anybody," she continued to speak, "I've never told anyone about this before and my heart is racing while telling you about it. I'm scared that people will stay away from me if I tell them."

"Don't worry, you can always count on me for help," he patted her head lightly, reassuring that he will be there if she ever needed him.

"Hey, you two. Hurry up!" Leorio called the two slow walkers. Now that they were done with the matches, the six had to spend the fifty hours Leorio gambled away in a room before they could continue.

* * *

**Note:** Some of you might wonder how majority votes would work out with 6 people since it's an even number. There is a greater chance for them all to come to an agreement than there is for it to turn out 3:3, so I figured it would work. Even if one of the voting results turned out as 3:3, I would have just made the characters re-vote after coming up with a choice they all agreed on. Many of the passageways and the prisoners were distractions in this challenge, and these were supposed to waste the candidates' time. Re-voting would have acted as a way to waste their time too.


	8. The Inoue Clan

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 7**

_The Inoue Clan_

...

The team entered the room and made themselves comfortable. After all, they had to spend their next fifty hours there. Gon and Killua decided to check out what was inside the fridge while Kurapika and Himeko scanned through the selection of books on the bookshelf. Leorio turned on the TV and Tonpa just sat down watching everyone, thinking of ideas of ruining their plans. Kurapika and Himeko were reading their way through a selection of books while some of the others got bored already. It had only been around five hours, so there were hours to go until they could continue. When there was nothing else left to do, Killua started teaching Gon how to ride a skateboard, while Killua tried his luck with Gon's fishing rod. But when the skateboard nearly hit Leorio's face, and Killua used the fishing rod to pull pranks on Leorio he finally lost it and ended up scolding the pair for playing around in a small, crammed room.

Following this, the boys watched Leorio fall back asleep not noticing how Tonpa was trying to get on his nerves. There was nothing left to do anymore in this tiny room. They've managed to explore every single dust particle in the room leaving them bored yet again. Their eyes scanned their entire surrounding, searching for something to preoccupy themselves with until they finally spotted Kurapika sitting in one corner with his nose stuck in a book. They noticed how fixed he was, his eyes not leaving the page even once. It would be rude to distract him who was so into a book, so their eyes darted towards Himeko who was staring at the white ceiling with a book in her hand. She started reading her fifth book, got bored and started looking around for something interesting to pop up on the ceiling. Seeing that she wasn't doing much, Gon was the first to go up to her.

"Kou, what are you reading?" Gon asked curiously, peeking to see the book cover. He figured that it might be a sequel to an adventure book she started reading, and although he himself wasn't much of a fan of reading, he was hoping that maybe she could actually retell him the whole story so they could both kill time together.

"Oh, this?" She closed the book and showed him the front cover. He was somewhat disappointed to see an old, plain, brown book with the Vitruvian man one the front cover, "It's just a book on the Human Anatomy!"

"Ana...what?"

"Eh? Don't they have any manga books here? What have you two been reading all this time?" While Gon was hoping to learn something from Himeko, Killua scooped low enough to look through the collection of books on the shelves, wanting to find a way to kill his boredom. All this time he was roaming through the large selection hoping to find a couple of manga books, or anything fictional for that matter but he had no luck. "Don't tell me you've been reading educational books this whole time?" He asked Himeko and Kurapika, seeing how many books they've managed to read through.

"Yeah, what's so bad about it?" Himeko asked in return, as Kurapika was too absorbed into his book to take part in the conversation.

Gon however had a completely different question on his mind, "Killua, what's an anatomy?"

"Why was I grouped together with a twelve year old Tarzan, two nerds, and a pair of useless old men?" Killua groaned in frustration. Gon and Himeko opened their mouths to answer but Killua stopped them. "That was a rhetorical question!"

Not wanting to disturb Kurapika, she quietly put down her book after the amount of criticism she got from Killua. These kinds of books weren't too new to her, in fact getting her hands on a fictional novel was very rare when she was little. Her mother always viewed them as a waste of time as she could use that time to read through something more useful. Little Himeko on the other hand loved getting her hands on them and spend hours reading through them when she was alone. It always felt so surreal reading through some stories and not being allowed to leave her clan, this was the only way for her to experience some excitement in her life. But then she finally realised the book she was carrying around in her backpack and took it out before proudly presenting it to Gon.

"Look at this!" She exclaimed in excitement. Gon took a moment to examine the cover of the book. It wasn't the most colourful illustration at the front, there was a man in a long black coat, and a top hat walking through the dark alleyway with a much larger and frightening shadow of him on the wall beside him. This wasn't exactly what Gon wanted, but it was much better than the previous book.

Gon proceeded to read the title, "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Hyde," he read, before reading off the name of the unfamiliar author. The title was enough to catch his attention, making him wonder what was so 'strange' about this case. But looking at the size of the book, he came to the conclusion that it would take him too long to read through it all, "did you read through it all?"

Himeko nodded proudly, "yeah, I managed to read through it all on the way to the Hunter exam. I finished it on the ship!"

"Really?!" Gon asked, getting another nod from Himeko, "can you tell me the story then?" Himeko put the book aside, while Gon moved closer to her for her to start storytelling. Killua couldn't help but overhear their conversation. He's heard of the very famous novel before; it was a very famous piece of gothic literature after all. While Himeko was too busy retelling Gon the whole plot, Killua picked up her book and sat a couple of meters away from them before he started reading.

Having someone as enthusiastic as Gon in the audience, Himeko couldn't help but tell him every single detail of the book over a course of time. The absurdity of the plot just managed to intrigue Gon further as Himeko went into depts, explaining the characters of Jekyll and her long-winded analysis on Hyde being the personification of pure evil in man. She went on to tell him that Hyde was much smaller than Jekyll representing that there is a small, evil part in every human but also how he was much younger than Jekyll telling them that his evil intentions weren't present at birth but influenced by the way he was brought up. Killua found himself putting away the book after a while and listening in on their conversation, yawning occasionally whenever the conversation started to get boring.

It was finally lunch time, and Killua was the first one to make it to the table followed by Tonpa. Kurapika was still too into his book, while Gon was asking Himeko a few question on the novella he hoped she could answer. "Is it possible to have two people living in one body like that?" He asked full of curiosity. He knew too well that it was just fiction, but that didn't stop him from asking.

"There is something called Dissociative Identity Disorder," Leorio answered his question. As he groggily walked past the kids to the table, he couldn't help but overhear their conversation, "it was formally known as Multiple Personality Disorder."

"So two different people can live in one body?"

"Well, it's when one individual can show two or more identities," he continued to explain, "there have been cases where the individual had more than twenty different personalities."

"Woah..." Gon and Himeko couldn't help but listen in awe. Gon wouldn't have guessed that such a thing existed, while Himeko who had heard of multiple personality disorder wouldn't have guessed that there were real cases with more than twenty different identities inside just one human being. Although it was for a slightly different reason than Gon, she was just as amazed as him by this all. But then again, they didn't expect any less from someone who was aspiring to become a doctor. After a brief explanation, Leorio informed them that it was time for lunch and that they should eat before Tonpa and Killua finished all of it.

"Let's have lunch!" Gon beamed once Leorio left, seeing that Kurapika was still in his concentration state.

"I second that!" Himeko followed him, hoping that Kurapika would eventually follow. Kurapika quietly put his book away and joined them too. They all ate in silence apart from Gon and Killua who were fighting over a piece of meat. Tonpa also decided to pick a fight with Leorio, leaving only Kurapika and Himeko eating in silence. After eating, they spend a couple more hours trying to kill time. Leorio and Tonpa fell asleep while Gon and Killua were still fooling around. Himeko just watched them with a book in her hands. She got through quite a few books already while Kurapika was still reading.

_"How can he keep reading like that?_" She thought to herself. "_He is just as bad as my brother!"_

"Hey Kou, join us!" Gon invited Himeko to join them. Seeing how she had nothing better to do, she decided to join the boys. Besides, if she didn't join then Gon would have just dragged her there, so it just saved a lot of hassle. They had a rock paper scissors tournament with the loser getting a painful flick on the forehead each time, until they got bored of that too. At the end of it, all three of them had painful red marks on their foreheads as none of them knew what the word mercy was when it came to playing games. Once Leorio was asleep again, Killua took back the skateboard he confiscated and continued to teach Gon how to skate while Himeko just swung the fishing rod around out while watching them have their fun. Although Gon wanted her to play with them, Killua didn't personally invite her so she remained behind.

A few more hours of goofing around later, the group decided to go to sleep.

...

_It was a dark, cold night at the Inoue estate. The chilly breeze that entered the room sent shivers down Himeko's spine. She tossed and turned on her futon, and covered her whole body with her blanket, but no matter what she did, she was still cold. It could partially be blamed on the nightie she wore to sleep, but now that the weather got a little chillier, it wasn't as suitable anymore. She opened her eyes and slowly struggled to get up, out of her futon and started looking around her traditional japanese style room. It was well past midnight, so of course the maid who would be watching over her would have left. Looking around the room, she noticed that the maid probably left the door open before she left as Himeko had a tendency to feel really warm in bed. Himeko got out of her futon and stumbled her way to the door planning to close it._

_She rubbed her eyes before looking out into the garden. It looked peaceful as usual, but it was way too quiet. All she could hear was the howling wind, the crickets and the water gushing down the small waterfall into the large koi pond. Normally she would occasionally hear the voices of some guards who were slacking off during their duty. As there weren't any guards outside her room, she started to feel very uneasy. Himeko was only eight at that time, so having to sleep in such a large room in this large mansion was scary. Nonetheless, s__he stepped out into the hallway, sliding the door to her room shut after remembering what her grandfather would aways tell her. Being her father's precious jewel, she shouldn't feel frightened to walk through her own house._

_After clearing the large lump stuck in her throat, she started taking slow steps down the awfully long hallway, hearing the wooden floor creak a little whenever she stepped on them. Being alone in this old mansion couldn't help but petrify her. Every time she heard a creak coming from the floor, she swore that her heart was literally about to jump out of her chest. __"Why are there no guards around today?" She started wondering, feeling like she had been completely abandoned by everyone around her,__"Maybe I should see where father and mother are." __After taking a right turn, she ended up at another sliding door. __"Father, mother?" She called before sliding the door open. _

_But when she opened it, there was no one inside. Their empty futons were still there, but neither her mother nor her father were to be found. She shut the door again before trying to see where her other relatives were. She went to her grandparents' room, uncles' rooms and cousins' rooms, but none of them were in her rooms. This wasn't normal, and she got a gut feeling that there was something wrong here. There were no guards around, and her family members were no where to be found. _

_O__nly one room left; her brother's room. But as she took a step out and looked down the dark, empty hallway, she couldn't help but start shaking. Her brain started blocking out all the peaceful sounds of her surrounding and all she could hear were her own irregular, short breaths and occasional long gasps for air. For some reason, the hallway looked a lot longer that it was during daytime. Her brother's room was right at the end of the hallway as well, and despite them being siblings their rooms were the furthest apart.__ She never really questioned it before today and wished his room was just a little closer to hers._

_'You are your father's little jewel, he would do anything to protect you.' That moment, she remembered her grandfather's words once again. Although Himeko knew that her smarter older brother was adored a lot more by her parents, she knew deep inside that her father adored her too. From having the most guards outside her room, to even a personal maid watching over her until she fell asleep, there was nothing her father didn't do to make her feel safer. Despite the little time he had left for his family, he frequently showered her with gifts from distant lands, gold, expensive gowns, treatment nobody else in her clan got, not even her older brother. Maybe it was just because of the simple fact of her being a girl and her brother being a boy and expected to look after himself, but she was way too young to understand her clan's gender stereotypes back then. Those little things her father did to make sure that she was safe made her continue walking after reassuring herself that she would be fine, and that her father would make sure that nothing would happen to her._

_"Onii-sama?" She called as soon as she reached his room, "I'm coming in!" But when she slid the door open, she was greeted by a loud, ear-piercing scream. Shocked, she stumbled back and fell onto the cold, hard floor._

_"Himeko, run!" Her brother panted, seeing her on the frozen on the floor. He seemed to have been stabbed in the chest and was struggling to form words. The rest of her family was in the room too, all slaughtered and covered in blood, and none of them seemed to be breathing. There were splashes of blood all over the wall. "Run," he forced yet another word out before he too collapsed onto the floor, joining the rest of his family in their red grave._

_Despite his instructions for her her to get out of there, she stood still. Himeko couldn't move at all as her deep blue eyes reflected the room covered in red in front of her. She couldn't even force out a scream feeling something stuck in her throat in terror. She started to hiccup as her tears were naturally starting to stream down. Her grandfather was a liar; her father couldn't do anything to protect the clan and his family as he too lied dead in the mass of bodies. She stumbled up onto her feet before making her way into the white room that was painted in red. She couldn't think of anyone strong enough to come and attack her whole clan. It confused that little mind of hers knowing that an outsider was able to do all this. _

_She suddenly remembered her brothers last words. 'Run'. Those words were echoing through her brain. She wasn't safe in her own house anymore, and whoever did this mass slaughter must have still been around. She didn't know where to run to, or who she could turn to now but she knew that she didn't want to end up dead too.__ She looked back at the lifeless corpses, not wanting to leave everyone behind like this, but she was too afraid to stay. She could either run away and hope to run into safety, or share the same fate as the rest of her clan._

_Himeko left her clan behind and started running. She ran down the long hallway spotting some of the murdered guards on the floor. The hallway seemed longer than ever this night and as she ran, she started hearing another set of footsteps behind her. She wasn't a fast runner, so eventually the footsteps managed to catch up with her. Before she could look back at the hand reaching out for her, she tripped and fell to the wooden floor, hitting her head._

_..._

Himeko shot up from her sleeping position and wiped away the sweat off her forehead, trying to catch deep breaths to calm herself down. She could feel her heart racing; her dream felt too real, just like that night. Once she calmed down, she looked around the dark room. Kurapika was deep asleep next to her with a book still in his hand. Leorio and Tonpa were sleeping while occasionally hitting each other. She looked over to see Gon and Killua. Gon was fast asleep while Killua eyes were wide open, watching her. Her eyes widened.

_"Why isn't he asleep?"_ She thought before crashing down onto her pillow again. She shut her eyes, pretending to be asleep as she heard footsteps approaching her way.

"Water?" She heard someone ask. She slowly opened her eyes as whoever it was didn't seem like they were going to leave anytime soon. After getting up, she hesitantly accepted the water bottle and took a few gulps from it before waiting for Killua to explain his sudden peace offering, or at least tell her why he was up so long. "I remembered something about the Inoue clan!" Killua said calmly, watching her expression darken. "Don't worry, we didn't have anything to do with their death," he reassured her, "Just hear me out."

She nodded, wanting to judge his true intentions after he told her the full story. "Why aren't you asleep?"

"I've been trained this way, I can stay awake for three days in a row without the need to sleep."

Hearing this, she couldn't help but be slightly impressed. For someone like him, the Hunter exam must have been a breeze so far. Despite their constant running around, he still didn't feel tired. Then again, that made her wonder why he wanted a license in the first place. Nonetheless, she couldn't help but feel curious about what he remembered, "So, what did you remember?" she asked him, hoping that this wasn't going to be a lie. She trusted that he wasn't bored enough to tell her fake information.

"I did hear the name Inoue before. We did get a few requests to assassinate the clan before, but my father and grandfather never accepted them for some reason," he shrugged. "They've always told us to turn down any requests to do with the Inoue clan no matter how big the rewards are. Let me tell you this, I remember them getting requests to assassinate the Inoue's for large sums of money, around two, three or sometimes four times the amount they would usually get, and they would still turn them down."

"You could have been offered millions, and they still didn't accept the requests?" She seemed somewhat surprised by this. Their clan wasn't too large, so it would have been an easy and quick way for Killua's family to make some money.

"We may be assassins, but we have something called pride." He felt like she wasn't aware of the fact that his family took pride in their business and wouldn't do anything against their own morels for just a couple of quick bucks. "You know, if we were really the ones hired to get rid of you, you wouldn't be alive right now. Do you think an eight year old princess would have had the chance to get away from us alive? Even my youngest brother at that time would have been more than enough to get rid of you. The fact that a child like you is alive right now shows how much of a sloppy job those amateurs did, but us Zoldycks are professionals." Killua's words made her blood boil. He wasn't just ridiculing her, he was making fun of her family name. It was as if the whole idea of the Zoldycks being suspects of the Inoue massacre was a joke to him, according to him his family was way to strong to have left their work undone. "You are living proof that we aren't guilty, isn't that more than enough to trust me right now?"

No matter how humiliating his point was, he was right. Killua wasn't the type who hesitated to kill, it only took her one day to understand this. If he was brought up like that, she couldn't begin imaging how strong the rest of her family members were. She was indeed living proof that her clans massacre wasn't the work of any professional assassin, they did a very sloppy job. "Your father and grandfather knew the Inoue clan?"

"Dunno!" He shrugged yet again, "I was only told to stay away from them. When my old man tells us to do something, we never ask why, we just do it."

The more she listened to his story, the more she felt like he was telling the truth. He wasn't the most trustworthy person, and he had a very long way before he could prove to her that she could trust him, but she could tell that he wasn't lying right now. She could momentarily trust him, "Is that all you remember?"

"You sure are impatient," he pointed out, sighing.

"You have more info?"

He nodded, "Four years ago I heard from my dad that the Inoue clan was murdered. Thirteen children and eight adults were found dead in the same room."

"Wait!" Himeko stopped him before she could continue. There was something odd about the count of the deceased, and she tried to recall how many people were in her clan. "Thirteen children? Weren't there any teens found?"

"Teens?"

"My brother, he was sixteen at that time. He dropped dead right in front of me," she informed him, "if there wasn't a mention about teens, are you sure there weren't fourteen children, or nine adults being found dead?"

"I don't remember any teens being mentioned, but I'm sure that those were the exact numbers," he admitted, "To be honest, my old man didn't even know how many children the Head had."

_"That would make sense. After all, our clan was secretive about a lot of things and now I understand why,"_ she was in deep thoughts. She lived with two of her grandparents, her parents, her older brother, two aunts and two uncles and thirteen cousins. Out of all the children, her older brother was the oldest. The rest of them were either just a couple of years older than her or younger. But her brother would have definitely seemed older than all of them. If what Killua just said was right, her brother was probably taken away by someone like what happened to her, or he should still be alive somewhere. "Do you know anything else?"

"No, that's all. I just felt the responsibility to tell you and so I did," he told her, "My job is done, so I'll be taking my payment now!"

"Payment?" she raised her brow, "For two lines worth of information? I don't even have money on me!"

"I don't want money," he informed her, "I take chocolate as payment instead."

"I don't even carry much cash around with me, do I seriously look like I have chocolate on me?"

He looked her up and down before answering, "Maybe! They say some people get a bit chubby eating chocolate so I'm assum-"

"That's just baby fat!" She shot back, "I don't have any food on me unless you fancy sucking on a tube of toothpaste. I'll pay you back after passing the exam!"

"For now I'm fine with you telling me about what happened to your clan," he suggested, "I've got nothing better to do anyway and I slept last night so I'm not tired."

"So you're just keeping me awake to kill time?"

"Let's just say it's a bit of both."

Himeko sighed, "Fine, I'll tell you!" She decided to tell him about everything she dreamt about that night. They were going to find out sooner or later and she had told Kurapika already. Besides, Killua didn't hide the fact that he was from an assassin family although he could have lost friends right then and there. Kurapika didn't hide the fact that he was after the Phantom Troupe to get revenge on his clan. Leorio told them about his friend who couldn't be cured simply because they lived in poverty. It was about time that she opened up to whom she considered her comrades.

"So, you felt like someone was following you and then suddenly you were knocked out from behind?" He asked and she nodded in response, "What happened after that?"

"I was somewhere strange," she answered him vaguely, "some men examined me, and then they took me to a cell with other children."

"A cell?"

"Long story short, hearing about the massacre, thieves must have entered our household. They probably stole whatever they could find lying around, I never exactly went back to check what they took though. I was taken by human traffickers to get sold off to someone who was willing to bid an amount high enough. Most of the leftover children including me were taken by an organisation that creates some kind of drug to create super humans."

"Super humans?"

"Yeah," she nodded, seeing how Killua followed her story surprisingly well, "They needed test subjects, but unfortunately not everyone survived the side effects. The very few that did were trained to become Royal Beasts."

"Royal Beasts?" That term suddenly rung a bell in his head. "So you were going to become one of _those_?" He was slightly surprised for her to mention that; she was the last person he expected to be one of them, especially seeing how small her build way; scientists must have been crazy expecting her to survive all those drug dosages, but he was even more surprised to see that she made it out alive and lived for so long without any side effects hindering her.

"Yes, if I wasn't able to escape with some of the other kids that is," she added, "I spent the years after that working for others for food and a roof over my head."

"The irony in that," Killua commented, "Royal Beasts are usually sold off to noble families to act as bodyguards. To think that someone from a noble family like the Inoues was about to serve another as one."

His statement made her raise her brow again, "You find it amusing?"

"Not at all, just very surprising," he said, looking around the room. Everyone here had a different story to tell, and it was surprising for someone like him. He always thought that he was somewhat odd compared to the rest of the world, and that others must have had a normal life compared to him, "Life seems to have a lot in store for some of us."

"You're right, and if what you said about my brother is true, he might have ended up like me, or might have died from the side effects. If not, he might have escaped and is somewhere out there in this world, and to find out who murdered my clan I must find my brother."

"I envy you," he seemed a little jealous of her, which couldn't help but surprise Himeko. It was the last thing she expected to come out of Killua's mouth, "You make it sound like you were pretty close with your family. After all, my fate would have been in the hands of my parents if I didn't run away."

"I'm not the right person to envy," she sighed, wishing that he was right. The only person she was envious of was Gon. Besides him, she had never envied anyone other than her own brother, "When you put it like that, I feel like I can relate to you. If my clan was still alive, I would have still been trying to beat my brother. He was the star of our clan, and it was obvious that he was going to become the next heir out of us two and in order to call myself the second child of the Head, I had to study day and night. I sometimes feel envious of how Gon is able to smile so innocently, it makes me wonder whether those days I spent studying were actually worth it."

"Getting all the attention in the family isn't nice either," he pointed out, thinking how he could relate to her brother. While he was the star of the Inoues, Killua had always been the star of the Zoldycks, "I would have rather be born as a normal, dumb child."

"I'm sorry for being a normal, dumb child," she said sarcastically, "Hate is a strong word to use, but I never really liked it when my parents compared me to my brother. It made me feel so useless, and I tried so hard to live up to our family name. My brother also ended up distancing himself from me once he was given the responsibility as the heir. Well, enough of me, what about you?"

"Me?" He was somewhat surprised to see that she was curious about his life. After all, she wasn't too nosy and liked to keep to herself. "You already know I'm from an assassin family. My family has high hopes for me to take over the business. I have two elder siblings and two younger ones and I've been trained to become an assassin from a young age going through various forms of tortures, which were given to me by my older siblings or my mother," He thought of other things he could list, "I think that's about it, there's not much to know about me to be honest."

"Do you by chance remember any of the people who came to request to have us killed?" She asked, wanting to at least have a starting point in her search, "Or do you remember why they came?"

"Sorry, we usually don't remember clients unless they are regular customers," he answered, "Also we don't ask for the reason for the assassination, we just do it. We don't care about reasons, at the end of the day we are just like death messengers."

"You make it sound like a normal family business with the talk about the regular customers."

"It might not be normal for you, but in my world killing is part of our daily routine just like eating and sleeping."

Not surprisingly, the pair soon ended up running out of things to talk about. "Well, I'm going to head to sleep now," she said, getting back under her blanket, "I'll buy you the chocolate after the exam is over." It didn't take too long for her to fall asleep due to exhaustion, and Killua just sat around wondering what to do next.

"_What am I supposed to do until morning now?"_ Killua asked himself, looking around the room to see everyone asleep. He looked over at Gon and smirked as he got an idea. He picked up his pillow and threw it at Gon which Gon ended up catching in his sleep. _"Was he asleep all this time?" _Gon slowly opened his eyes and got up, tightening his grip on the pillow before throwing it back to Killua. The two of them kept going and soon, some of the others in the room woke up due to the two giggling.

"Go to sleep, you damn brats!" Leorio yelled angrily, as a pillow accidentally ended up hitting him and waking him from his slumber. Himeko on the other hand was able to sleep tightly. She finally got a new lead about her clan and thanks to Killua, she finally gained hope that her clan might have another survivor; _her brother_.

* * *

**A/n** \- Finally I was able to write a chapter with my own ideas. Happy New Year everyone ~


	9. Two different Resolves

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 8**

_Two Different Resolves_

...

The group slowly started to get ready to leave the room. Fifty hours have gone by, and all six managed to somehow survive nearly two days in that crammed room without getting at each other's throats. Now that most of their time was wasted by their penalty, they decided to step up a gear to make up for it. Although Tonpa still continued to irritate the others, no one other than Leorio cared anymore. They had other things to worry about him, and the sooner they got out of there the sooner they could get rid of that pest. He continued to purposely choose the wrong option for each question, but nonetheless they all managed to safely arrive at the final door without any other problem.

_'There are two doors. The first path is long and hard and all six of you may pass, but it will take you forty hours to get through this path. The second path is quick and easy however only four of you may pass. This route take you around three minutes. Which door will you choose?'_

They looked at the time they had left, and forty minutes was immediately out of the question. They would end up roaming around the maze for two additional days after the time was up if they chose the longer route, but if they were to chose the second door only four people would be able to pass.

The long route was out of the question, they'd be roaming around the maze for around two more days if they chose the first path and the phase would be long over by then. If at least some of them wanted to pass, the second route was the only option, but of course no one wanted to stay behind after coming this far. They didn't have much time left either, so they had to think and act fast. Two handcuffs were hung to one of the brick walls, and the second path would only open if two people were handcuffed to the wall. Until then, the second door will remain closed. No one would want to volunteer to stay behind after coming this far. Except for maybe Killua and Tonpa, they all had a long winded reason to pass this phase and move on. Looking around the room, there were weapons hung up on one of the walls, and they could be used to decide on four people who could proceed.

_"I've come so far, I'm not giving up!" _Tonpa thought as his eyes cautiously moved to the range of weapons available for him to use. His main goal as a rookie crusher was to take out as many rookies as possible, but this year was different. Not only did he get the opportunity to meet such strong rookies, he also got a lot further than he usually would. Now that he got this far, he wasn't so willing to give up easily. He was closer than ever to getting his Hunter's license, and he wasn't going to let this chance slide, "I suggest Leorio should volunteer. After all, thanks to him we've wasted fifty hours and we could have used that time to take the first path and all pass."

"What?!" Leorio exclaimed in anger before he started to argue back, "You were the one who wanted to get us to fail no matter what. You should be staying back."

Seeing how Leorio could explode anytime soon, Gon decided to intervene, "We should all think of a way to get out together!"

"I agree. We've all worked hard to come this far together, it wouldn't be fair to leave someone behind," Himeko added. Although she usually wouldn't care, she had to acknowledge the fact that without Gon, Kurapika, Leorio and Killua she wouldn't have come this far. Just like her, they've done as much as they possibly could to help each other come this far. Well, there was one person she didn't really care much about, "_I'd rather leave the fat pig behind though."_

"Can't you two read?" Tonpa asked in a loud, mocking tone while pointing at the board displaying the next challenge. "It says we need forty hours for all of us to pass! I'm not planning to stay here."

But hearing those words come out from someone like Tonpa, Himeko couldn't stay calm any longer, "Maybe you should try and think of a way out you stupid, old pig!" Himeko snapped at him, "You got in our way during this whole phase, and you tried to get rid of is before the first phase so you owe us a big one!" Leorio was the only one who freely expressed his hatred for Tonpa throughout their whole journey in Trick Tower, but that didn't mean that no one else was getting annoyed by him. Tonpa annoyed everyone, but they all chose to ignore him and focus on the more important things around them. Hearing that snappy, mocking tone out of Tonpa's mouth was the last she could take. He knew exactly how annoying he was himself, and neither did he do anything useful all this time. If they had to handcuff someone, she'd drag him by his neck and handcuff him herself.

"I owe you nothing," Tonpa replied with a smug smile. He knew he was getting to them all at this point, and it wouldn't take much for them to fight amongst themselves.

Gon held Himeko back, calming her down, "Stay calm, Kou! Don't listen to him!"

Kurapika was still thinking about the odds, "I'm with Gon and Kou," he said, "We should try find another way out."

"_Yes, finally! Someone's talking sanely!"_ Himeko thought, "_Can someone please replace all these idiots with Kurapikas and Gons?!"_

"What do you plan on doing?" Tonpa asked as he slowly moved towards the weapons on the wall and reached out for the axe, before Leorio spotted him. But it was too late, he already got hold of the axe and was gripping on it tightly, swinging it around aimlessly.

"You bastard, you're trying to get rid of us!" Leorio yelled, slowly backing away knowing that Tonpa would have him in mind as the first target.

"You people are giving me no other choice," Killua started off before his fingernails changed into sharp claws, warning everyone to keep their distance, "I'm not staying behind either!"

"Not you too Killua," Gon frowned now that even Killua had started this nonsense. Out of all the people there, he hoped that Killua was one of the saner people who would help figure out a way out together.

"Right now it's three:three, it's a tie!" Kurapika pointed out, "Unless we come up with a solution quickly, we'll all fail!" However, Tonpa just kept swinging the axe around, not caring about anyone and anything that came in his way. The sooner he got rid of everyone, the better. It didn't even matter if they all got injured at this point, as long as at least two people could be left behind it was good enough for him. Seeing Tonpa like this, Leorio didn't hesitate to get out his small pocket knife, knowing that Tonpa wouldn't hesitate to slash him with the axe. At this point, the knife was purely for self defence but sooner or later he would loose all patience and use it against him. Killua was on standby too, ready to attack anyone that posed a threat to him.

"Stop swinging that axe around!" Himeko yelled seeing that Tonpa was starting to get closer to her and Gon. "You are seriously going to hit someone with that axe."

"If you are that scared of your friends getting hit, why don't you just try and stop me?" Tonpa started riling her up, "but now that I've got an axe, I'm not afraid to use it. Especially now that you aren't just an ordinary little girl anymore. Knowing that you're a freak, it's not going to bother me when slashing you open." That drew the line for her. Things like these she could easily ignore, but the fact that someone of his low status continuously talked so badly about her who was blue blooded started to irk her. She didn't live life to hear opinions from others, but she had enough self-respect to know when to speak out. Despite the death threat, Himeko clenched her fist and was prepared to shut him out for good, but before she could do so, Kurapika grabbed her wrist and held her back.

"Just ignore him, he is just trying to wind you up!" he attempted to calm her down, "We need as many ideas as we can to get out of here."

It didn't take long for her to be reminded that it was just going to be a waste of her time, "_He is right, we all have to think of a way out together."_

The trio continued to give the situation some thought and hoped to find a way out without the use of violence. Tonpa continued smashing everything that was in his way, while Leorio was still watching out for him. Gon eventually noticed that the walls Tonpa hit started breaking, "I've got an idea!" He instructed everyone to pick the first path, and although some of them were doubting him, they ended up trusting Gon. After the first path opened, he passed out the weapons and told everyone that the walls are breakable and that they could break into the second path eventually.

"That's actually quite smart," Kurapika praised him, making Gon grin in satisfaction.

"What are we waiting for then?" Leorio asked, heading in with a large hammer. The six took turns to try and dig through the wall splitting the two paths and although they were making progress, there wasn't much time left to be fussing around. It would still take a couple of turns for the wall to fully break open.

"Wait guys, let me try!" Himeko said, dropping her weapon to the ground. Kurapika and Leorio moved out of the way, and she moved in front of the half broken wall. She gathered some strength into her foot, managing to kick the wall down in one go.

"Well, that works too I guess," Kurapika said, still awestruck by the strength that was in just one kick, "Good job!"

"Now what?" Killua asked, "We are nearly out of time."

"No we're not," Gon answered with a confident smile, "Not if we use your skateboard!" Killua wasn't too happy about using his new skateboard for one of Gon's stunts, but as there was no time to think, he passed it to him. With a couple of things lying around the room, they were able to make a small cart. As the countdown was getting closer to zero, they all hopped into the cart and made their way through the second path. At the goal, candidates that have already passed were waiting for anyone else to come through in the remaining seconds; though they highly doubted it. They all prepared to move on to the next stage before they heard loud screams followed by something crashing. In front of them were Gon, Killua, Kurapika and Himeko who all seemed to have made in just in time, but they were surprised to see two additional candidates emerge from the back. They managed to make it just in time, and not to soon after they passed the time limit was up, concluding the third phase of the Hunter exam.

"Gon, you're getting me a new skateboard!" Killua pointed out, after looking at the state of his skateboard. Twenty five examinees passed and Gon's group was the last one down. Lippo, the examiner who was in charge of the third stage was quite impressed by Gon's quick thinking. He was watching everything from the security room after all, judging each and every candidates abilities. Though some didn't catch his interest, there were a couple that managed to stand out for various reasons. Gon was oddly one of those.

_"That boy is quite smart,"_ he was amused seeing the security footage,_ "Digging a hole from the first path to the second_ path,_ I've never seen anyone do something like that before." _In his opinion, it was ingenious, and it didn't break any rules either. But then again, this was the same little boy that managed to outsmart a serial bomber in his own game.

Later, the remaining examinees exited the tower and were greeted by Lippo, who presented them with a box. He asked everyone to step forward and draw a number from the box. Hisoka went first as he was the first one to complete the Trick Tower. Gon and the others' eyes were on him, hoping that none of them were his target. It would turn out ugly, and they knew that Hisoka's target would be guaranteed dead. After all the examinees drew a number, Lippo continued to explain the next phase.

"On that card, there's a number. You will be hunting the person with that number," he explained, and as soon as he did, everyone suddenly covered their badges and safely put them into their pockets. "We will take you to Zevil Island where you will be trying to steal the person's badge for a week." Lippo ordered the candidates to enter the boat that will take them to Zevil island for the fourth phase. On the boat everyone acted with caution, his words were more than enough to break any trust people had left. Not knowing who the real enemy was, everyone would be considered as an enemy.

"Kou!" Himeko was looking out to the sea, before she was interrupted by Gon's voice. She turned around to see Gon and Killua approach her. In a way, she knew what their reasons were for approaching her and for obvious reasons, her heart started to beat faster. Hisoka was one person she didn't want to be hunted by, but neither did she want someone like Gon, Kurapika or Leorio to fail. Despite them being close acquaintances with her, it didn't change the fact that she wanted to pass the exam for her own goals. She didn't have to hunt the three, neither did she have to go after Killua, but if any of those four wanted to get her badge from her, she wasn't prepared to let them do that.

"What is it?"

"Who did you get?" Killua asked, not wanting to beat around the bush. It was obvious that she wasn't his target, otherwise he wouldn't have approached her so openly. Gon also didn't seem guilty, so she was sure that she wasn't his target either. That alone was enough to relieve her.

"I'm doing great, thanks for asking! And the pressure isn't getting to me, thank you for caring so much about my wellbeing!" she commented sarcastically, making Killua roll his eyes. Gon just sighed seeing how they were back at it. "Besides, isn't it bad manners to ask me before telling me who you got?" She asked raising her brow, however that didn't last too long. Seeing Gon tense up, she gave them a reassuring smile "It's none of you guys, don't worry!"

Compared to her, Gon made it quite obvious on how relieved he really was hearing this news. "Great!" He let out a loud sigh, before returning a smile, "we don't have any of you either."

"Do you two know who number 354 is?" She asked, showing them the scrunched up piece of paper with the number 354 on it. The boys looked at each other before shaking their heads as a response, "Seriously, those wimps all took off their badges before I could get a good look at who my target is!"

"You took off your badge too," Killua pointed out hoping that it was going to be enough to stop her from complaining.

"Yeah, but I only did it because it became a trend!" Himeko answered which made the boys sweat-drop at her comment, "Never mind that, who did you two get?"

"I got 199. Any idea of who it might be?" Killua asked, but Himeko shook her head. She didn't catch a glimpse of anyone's badge, if she did then she would have known who her own target was. She then looked at Gon, waiting for his response.

"I got 44," he said, making her eyes widen.

"44? Hisoka?" She asked, hoping she just heard wrong but Gon just nodded his head, "I was hoping that none of us would have to deal with him, especially after what happened back in the swamp."

"Yeah, my hands still shake whenever I think about that," Gon added. Fear wasn't something that bothered him much, but his first encounter with Hisoka made the adrenaline rush through his body. Deep inside, Gon knew that Hisoka was bad news.

Looking at him, she started to feel sorry. Gon truly tried his best to come all this way, and although the targets were randomly selected, she didn't think it was fair to make Gon out of all people go after Hisoka. Not when there were so many other people who would have a better chance against him, like that bald ninja, Hanzo, or the freaky guy with the needles in his head, or even Killua for that matter. If she was in his shoes, she would have felt really frustrated right now, she would have even been to scared to continue and give up. "Why did he have to pass all the previous phases anyway?" she asked out of frustration for Gon.

"Careful," Killua warned her, "He might overhear you if you keep talking this loudly and he might decide to pay you a little visit while we are on Zevil island."

"Fine, I'll zip my mouth as long as I don't have to see Hisoka until finishing the exam, and after finishing the exam too," her voice quietened down, while she looked around for any signs of Hisoka lurking around, "I'm going to go around the ship and try to find out who my target is."

"How are you going to make people tell you?" Killua questioned her out of curiosity. She was quite smart after all, so maybe whatever she thought of might actually work out and he could use the same method to find his target too. But this time, her plan wasn't too smart after all.

"I'll just snoop around here and there," she responded, "If that doesn't work, I'll try to force it out of them." The boy's sweat-dropped again after hearing her answer. They expected something smarter than going around and beating the answer out of someone. But eventually all three of them parted their ways. Himeko and Killua went off to try and find out who their target is while Gon was thinking of how he could possibly pass this stage. Himeko started to look around and find someone who would possibly know all the candidates' numbers by heart. Tonpa was the first person on her list, but she wondered whether she really wanted to hear his voice again after having to spend three days with him.

Whilst snooping around, she heard someone calling her name, "Himeko!" She turned around and saw that Kurapika was heading towards her.

She crossed her arms in annoyance, "It's Kou to you," she reminded him.

"Ah, sorry," he smiled sheepishly, "I'm still not used to it."

"I've got an idea then!"

"What is it?"

"The next time you guys call me Himeko, I'll get one hundred jenny from you," she grinned mischievously.

He playfully raised his brow, "Are you trying to use your friends as a way to get quick cash?"

"Well, now that you know that, I'm sure you won't be calling me Himeko anymore."

He couldn't help but let out a small chuckle, "Fine, Kou it is!" He smiled, "But do you really hate your name that much?" She thought about his question for a while before answering him. Honestly, this was the first time someone had actually asked her that question so she had to somehow find a way to explain her reasoning to her. She previously told them to call them Kou since the term 'Hime*' did not fit her personality as it was too girly for her, but that was such an obvious lie now that she looked back. There was nothing wrong with it, at the end of the day it was just a name after all.

"It's not the name I hate, but the term 'hime' and the responsibility that comes along with it," she confessed, "Sure, it might be every little girl's dream to be pampered and having people calling you Princess or Young Lady, but the responsibility that comes with that title is something no one at that age could imagine. I had to be smarter than everyone, more talented than everyone and if I failed I would have been a disgrace to the clan's name. Although my brother would have been the true successor of the clan, I would have had to carry a lot of responsibilities too as the second in line," she began to explain, "I was a backup plan, if my brother miraculously ended up failing for whatever reason, I would have been the one to take over from there."

"You wouldn't have failed your clan at all," he interrupted, seeing how lowly she was thinking of herself, "For your age, you have quite a lot of knowledge."

"Unfortunately, for my parents that was no where near enough, having a genius brother and all," she sighed, "You know what's really funny?"

Kurapika grew curious seeing how amused she looked all of the sudden, "What is it?"

"My father once gave me a book about a little mermaid princess who wanted to set foot beyond her kingdom. She ended up losing everything close to her, and eventually ended up dying herself."

"The Little Mermaid, I've read the story."

"The truth is, even though a Princess would be curious of what the real world looks like, they would have had no time to worry about it. Instead of breaking free from their castle life, just being able to break free from their responsibilities would be good enough for them," she continued, "I'm grateful that I was born with a roof over my head and get at least three meals every day. I think of kids around the world who could only dream of one full meal so I stop complaining about myself, but if my clan was still alive, I wouldn't have been able to decide my own future. My future, no my life would have been stolen from me. I would have lived as my parents' puppet."

Kurapika just kept listening to her. They were both part of a clan but the lives they lived were completely different. They were both isolated from the outside world but while Kurapika yearned to get a glimpse of the outside world, Himeko just wanted to have some weight lifted off her shoulders. She was prepared to stay indoors for the rest of her life as long as she was able to get a break from everything here and then. When Himeko first told Kurapika about her clan and their brutal murder, he thought they had a lot in common. He wasn't one to trust someone, but somehow the fact that he could see a little bit of himself in her made him trust her even more. They both want revenge, but that was pretty much all they had in common in the end. The more Himeko spoke the more distant he felt; it felt like Himeko was building a wall in between the two of them with just her words.

"Honestly, there were times when I was curious of what was beyond my clan, just like the little mermaid did. But seeing how badly that ended up for her, that dream quickly disappeared. Now I know that losing everything I had was the only way for me to see light beyond the walls separating my clan from the outside. Just like the little mermaid, I lost everything I had," she said, but the rest of that sentence she kept to herself, _"sometimes I wonder whether I'm going to end up meeting death the same way she did," _she thought before continuing, "As for my name, I decided to lift the weight off my shoulders myself. I wanted to throw away the feeling of being responsible for a whole clan and the only way I could do that was by throwing away my title. Although there's no Inoue clan left, whenever people called me Himeko I felt as if I still had people left to please. There's no one left to please, so I'm not Himeko anymore. I'm Kou who is free from her past."

It was a plain stupid reason, there was no way for her to become free of the past just b changing her name. Her past stuck with her, everything her eyes witnessed still haunted her to that day and she knew that very well. Nonetheless, she still felt oddly satisfied when people called her Kou instead of Himeko. Her past couldn't be rewritten, but the name Kou reminded her less of it and she wished that someday she would forget about it all together.

"Please stop," Kurapika muttered as he wasn't prepared to continue listening to her like he used to. He felt pathetic to have promised to lend her an ear, but as soon as he couldn't relate to her, he didn't want to listen to her anymore. He wanted her to listen to him instead. For some reason he wanted to break down the wall that was no separating them. Was he attracted to her? No, not at all. But he felt helpless to be alone again. After so many years, he didn't think that he would come across someone who shared the same pain he did and when he finally found someone, he didn't feel like the only person in this big world anymore. It was truly selfish of him, wanting her to feel pain when he did, wanting her to cry when he did, wanting her to kill when he did, but knowing that there was someone who felt the same way he did, he felt satisfied.

"Kurapika, are you alright?" Himeko started worrying over his change in expression. He looked slightly bothered by something.

"Will you listen to me?" He asked, which surprised her a little.

"Sure, it's the least I can do. You don't have to ask me," she felt as though Kurapika was always there for her, and she wanted to return the favour.

"Just like your clan, us Kurtas were isolated from the rest of the world but for different reasons. You are from a noble bloodline so it only makes sense that your clan wanted you to be away from anyone who could possibly harm you, but for us, we isolated ourselves because of our eyes that turn scarlet. They are said to be one of the seven most beautiful colours in the world," he started off. Himeko already knew this much about Kurapika. Not just her but Kurapika had told everyone that much, "When I was about to fall off a cliff while I was still a little boy, another boy from our clan saved me. Thanks to him, I made it out unharmed but because of me, his legs and eyes were injured and they slowly degraded over time. We became friends soon and I swore to cure him. But our clan did not have the technology to cure someone in such a bad stat,e and I promised that I will find him a doctor to cure him in the outside world. People from our clan have to pass a test to be able to roam the outside world and I soon decided to take the test when I was old enough and I passed. I left the clan to find a doctor for my friend and came back six weeks later to find my whole clan annihilated. Every single one of their eyeballs was stolen from them and before I knew it, I was the only one left in this world."

Himeko felt her heart sink when Kurapika told her about the massacre once again. She could truly relate to him, she knew the pain of being robbed your family in just one night. Unlike Kurapika, Himeko did not feel a wall in between the two of them at all. Instead, she thought that the fact Kurapika told her more about himself made them closer. He was being so honest with her, she felt grateful. Did she feel attracted to him though? Maybe.

"Hey, are you alright? Did I say something to upset you?" Kurapika started to panic a little seeing her cry. She might still be a child, but she was very mature for her age. After everything they've been through, she still held her head high, so the fact that she started crying over something like this startled him.

"I'm just grateful that you told me all that," she said, "For all these years I was desperately trying to find someone to talk to like this."

"Thank you for listening," he thanked her wholeheartedly, but she just shook her head.

"We are friends, we should skip all the formal thank you's," she returned a smile as she wiped away all her tears. She didn't know what it was, but the past couple of days made her feel so alive. She had someone to play with, someone to open up to, and people to argue with. Four years have passed since her clan was brutally murdered, but those four years felt like four days. She couldn't think of one thing she truly enjoyed doing over those years, she lived life just for the sake of living. She was aimlessly wandering around the world with only revenge on her mind, not bothering with anything else. It was a pointless way of living, and it took her this long to finally understand that and now that she did, she regretted wasting four precious years of her childhood. What seemed to be a black and white movie slowly started to regain some colour, all thanks to Gon, Kurapika, Leorio and even Killua. Unlike in the past where she would just wait for the days to go by, searching for clues, she finally looked forward to what the future had in store for her.

While recalling everything that happened over the past few days, she remembered what Killua told her a couple nights ago. She was given a blank canvas and no paint, so she had no idea on what to do until now. Now that Killua had provided her with some paint, she could finally do something. Knowing that he would be happy for her, she started to tell Kurapika all about it.

"You see, I've told Killua about my clan too and he told me something important the other day," she started off telling him. The fact that Killua knew something about her clan caught his interest. Killua still remained a mystery to all of them. A member of the notorious Zoldycks suddenly appeared before them, claiming to take the Hunter exam just to pass some time. The weren't sure whether that was his real intentions, or whether he had some other ulterior motive he hadn't told anyone about, but just the fact that an assassin knew about the murder of a clan was enough to intrigue him. "According to him, my brother's body was not found. That means he might be alive somewhere out there!"

"Really?" he asked in surprise, "That's good to hear!"

"If I manage to find him, I will know who killed my clan. I would know who to hunt down, and I'm sure my brother is already on the hunt."

"You finally have a starting point. At least I knew who I was after all this time," Kurapika said, to which she agreed happily. She never too sure who or what she was after all this time, but the fact that there was an eye witness out there gave her some hope. "By the way, didn't you say that you were from the main Inoue clan. Are there perhaps any other Inoue clans? Your brother might have gone there."

"I highly doubt that," she sighed, remembering how complicated the state of her family was. Back then, she was too young to understand power struggles, but it wasn't rocket science to figure out that both clans didn't get along very well. "A few generations ago there was only one Inoue clan. It was once a peaceful clan, but not everyone in it had the same opinions. There have been many disagreements in the past but at one point, it got too much and consequently, half of the clan who believed in a wrong objective ended up being exiled. You see, long ago our clan was known throughout many countries. We had fame, power and respect from the rest of the world, but eventually our clan started closing off to the outside world and we started to become history. We are blue blooded, so our status won't die down no matter how many years go by. Status and wealth would always remain, and this thought was more than enough to satisfy some. The people who thought this were primarily in the main clan. However, having ancestors that lived such a prideful life, clan members started to want more than just status and wealth. They wanted the power we had back in the days," she explained, "They ended up forming another clan with believes that differed from ours. To them, we were considered cowards who couldn't stick up for our rights, but to us they were plain shameless. Eventually, both clans stopped talking and lived separate lives as if we were never from the same clan to begin with. I highly doubt my brother would have gone there, and I doubt they would have accepted him even if he did."

"You can try, Kou! People change! This was all years ago, they might be willing to accept you and your brother after all you've been through," Kurapika encouraged she had just told him happened decades ago, and grief usually brought enemies back together. He was sure that no one would turn someone like her away, they were still her family members after all, "You should pay them a visit right after the Hunter exam!"

Hearing this from Kurapika, she found herself hesitating. "I guess it won't hurt," she gave him a small smile, still wanting to give it some thought. There was a moment of silence between the pair before Kurapika thought of something to ask her.

"What will you do after you found your brother?" He asked, knowing that after answer would have changed from her previous one from a couple of days ago. She was given more options now, and seeing how seriously she thought about that question, he knew he was right.

"I want to find out who killed my clan of course!" She gave him the same answer. Revenge; she chose the same path he did, but she continued, "But I won't go after them straight away. I will let them know that we are still alive, I will let them know that the Inoue clan won't die so easily. Sure, I've hated the way my childhood was stolen from me, but it won't stop me. I will find my brother and rebuild the Inoue clan. He is the rightful heir who my parents wasted all their time and energy to raise. My parents never looked at me once like that, but I will make sure that their eyes won't leave me while they are watching over us. When I rebuild my clan, I know the criminals will come back and I'll be prepared this time." Himeko thought that Kurapika would be happy to hear her resolve, but that wasn't the case. He felt as if she had built another wall in between them, but this time it seemed almost impossible to break through.

_"I thought we were alike, but we're different, opposites to be exact!"_ He thought to himself. They were both after the same goal; revenge; but why did he feel so empty? He felt guilty wanting her to feel the same emotions as he did, but he couldn't help the thought. She was still too naive, she was a child no matter how smart and capable she was. She lacked experience and she still hasn't seen the world for as long as he has. Anger, frustration, rage, she was still too young to know what those things really are. Sure, the thought of getting revenge on someone was oddly satisfying, but there was a clear difference between the thought of it and actually doing it.

Although their goals are the same, they were both taking different paths towards it, and only Kurapika knew this. He was willing to go down the ruthless and self destructive path, worrying that his anger will slowly fade with time, but she was still clinging onto her life, not wanting to let go of it just for revenge. She still wanted to live the years of her childhood that were robbed by her parents. Now that he thought about it, he wondered whether Himeko would even consider revenge after finding her brother. He might talk her out of it, not wanting her to get hurt and at the same time she might choose to leave this all behind in the past and focus solely on her future.

Kurapika had enough and needed time to think by himself, about himself. He decided to leave, "Good luck," he muttered before leaving. Himeko wished him luck too, thinking it was for the fourth phase, but his words weren't meant for just that. Kurapika knew she would pass, in fact he had a pretty good idea on who he was going to see again in the fifth phase. Instead, he wished her luck for her journey, for the path she was going to take for revenge, or at least what she considered revenge. Knowing that his mind won't sway as easily, he didn't want to influence her any longer. He was willing to do anything to kill the Phantom Troupe, and he knew that he was starting to dig his grave deeper and deeper by the day. Making a twelve year old blinding follow his ideals was just plain cruel.

One goal, separated by two different paths and two different resolves.

* * *

*Hime- Japanese word for Princess. Can also be used to address someone, eg. _Name_ hime. It is also the first part of Himeko's name.


	10. Hunting and Hunted

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 9**

_Hunting and Hunted_

_..._

The boat eventually arrived at Zevil island, and the examinees got off one by one. They examined the area as they got off, and thought of possible ways to snatch the tag off their targets.

"You will stay here for one week. During that week, you will have to hunt down the person with the number you got. You will need six points to advance to the next round. The tag of the person with the number you drew is worth three points and any other tag is worth one and your own tag is worth three points. I will now call you one by one in the order you completed the Trick Tower and you will enter the forest one after the other with ten minutes in between."

"So basically the people who go in first will have an advantage," Gon pointed out.

_"But then again, if you don't get the tag of your opponent you can still pass by getting three others,"_ Himeko thought looking at Gon, _"That means that he doesn't have to risk facing Hisoka again. I'm sure he is smart enough to figure it out himself, but maybe I should remind him just in case..."_

Her thoughts were cut short once the announcer woman started the timer and told the first examinee to enter the forest. Hisoka entered with an eerie and unsettling expression on his face. The fact that he was up first and had a clear advantage over everyone else was worrying, especially since he can go around and kill as many examinees as he wanted for a whole week now. Alone in a forest full of monsters, what an unsettling thought. One by one, the examinees were called up and sent into the forest. Soon, Gon's team was left at the starting point as they were the last ones to complete the Trick Tower. After Killua, Gon and Kurapika have gone in, it was finally Himeko's turn. After wishing Leorio good luck, she confidently entered the forest and casually walked down the path, knowing that there could be traps all around the forest, so she had to be careful.

_"So I have a week to stalk eighteen people and find out who my target is,"_ she began constructing a plan in her head, _"For someone like me it would take four days to find my way around this forest which leaves three days to actually find my target and take the tag off them." _Himeko sighed and kept walking. She wished she had a map with her although that wouldn't help her much. For now, it was smarter to look around for food and water and stock up before moving deeper into the forest. Besides, the other examinees would definitely be further inside the forest by now, so it was safer lurking around the outskirts.

After a couple of hours of aimlessly wandering around, she has finally found a couple of trees with edible fruits and river with clean water. She knew not all of the fruits were safe to eat, and unfortunately she wasn't Gon to be able to distinguish the good ones from the bad ones. However, she did recognise some of the fruits and berries from books she read back inside the room in Trick Tower. She left the ones she knew were definitely good and ignored the others, not knowing whether those could kill her. After filling up her water bottle, she settled down to eat.

During the time searching for food, she came across two examinees. She didn't want to waste time and energy facing them and fighting, so instead she just snuck around them and tried to get a glimpse of their tags. Unfortunately, her genius plan of sneaking around wasted more time than saving it. However, she did figure out that those two examinees were not her targets. That meant that there were sixteen suspects left now, and one of them must be her target. So far, everything was going smoothly for her. Everyone apart from Gon was pretty much in the same situation as Himeko. They were aimlessly wandering around the forest to find their targets. Gon on the other hand was trying to find a way to snatch Hisoka's tag off him, which left him as clueless as the others. He knew that Hisoka wasn't an easy target, and he had to find a way to trick him without getting his attention.

Three days past and Himeko narrowed down her list to four people. During these days she had also encountered the person with her number whom she managed to beat up before continuing. Although she managed to trick him, and tie him to a tree leaving a bottle of water and some fruits for him to survive on, she couldn't be sure that he hasn't found a way to escape. When she suddenly heard voices coming towards her, she stopped walking and climbed a tree high enough so she couldn't be seen. This was something she did throughout the three days; you could say her tree climbing skills have improved quite a lot. She didn't want to waste time picking pointless fights, so she ended up going undercover for the past couple of days.

Once she found a good spot to keep an eye on the nearing candidates, she quietly sat there waiting for them to appear. Luckily, it was someone she hadn't encountered before, so in a way she was quite happy. This time, it turned out to be the Amori brothers; or the stupid trio as Himeko liked to call them. She watched them talk amongst each other and hiding as someone else approached the trio. It was another examinee, but she couldn't make out who it was yet.

_"It must be one of their targets,"_ she thought, trying to get a glimpse of who it was, _"This is the perfect opportunity to check out their tags while they aren't moving." _Her eyes travelled from one Amori brother to the other as she checked their tags, but unfortunately none of them were her targets and that narrowed down her list to just one person who was left on it. She still had four days left to find him, so she decided to wait and see how the brothers were going to take down their target. _"This could be interesting. Those three don't look like much individually which is why they heavily rely on teamwork,"_ she thought, _"I wonder who their target is." _The brothers all hid well, while Himeko was anticipated to see who their target was, but she was disappointed disappointed when he came into view. Unfortunately for them, one of their target turned out to be Killua. _"I feel kinda sorry for them. Maybe I should warn them before they provoke him_."

But it was too late as one of them jumped into action, and managed to land a direct hit, sending Killua flying back. Himeko squinted her eyes to clearly see what was happening, and she spotted Killua getting back on his feet with little, to no effort. The other two brothers were rushing in to help out, but Killua managed to hold one of them hostage, "One more step and I'll cut his head off," he warned, and seeing this, the two stopped moving. Killua looked at his tag. It was #198, it wasn't his target. If Himeko remembered correctly, Killua's target was number #199. "If this guy is #198, one of you two might have #199. Go on, give me your tags. If not…" he gave them a sadistic smile before his claws lightly pierced his hostage's skin, warning them that he wasn't messing with them. The pair gulped, seeing blood drip down their brother's neck and hesitated no longer before throwing their tags to Killua. He released the hostage to pick up the two tags lying on the floor in front of him.

"What did you say your number was again?" He asked out loud, knowing that Himeko was up somewhere watching them. She was quite high up in the trees, but Killua still managed to sense her presence and eventually spotted just a slight movement coming from there, confirming his suspicion. The three brothers looked at him in confusion as they haven't noticed Himeko yet, "Stop hiding up there like a stalker, you are really bad at hiding yourself."

_"He actually knew I was here all this time..."_ Himeko thought to herself, looking at Killua casually putting his own tags away now that he had found it. She thought she did a good job, but clearly Killua just proved her wrong. Eventually, she decided to climb down from the tree, "Yo!" She greeted the brothers with a smile, and the trio looked very surprised to see her popping out of no where, "None of them were my targets unfortunately."

"So you don't mind me throwing them away?" He asked her, giving the brother's a mischievous smile.

Hearing this, the three brothers just hoped he was joking. But seeing how he started to stare at the two unwanted tags, they knew he wasn't, "Ehh?!" they yelled in disbelief.

"Not at all," Himeko shrugged, returning that same mischievous smile, "Throw them as far as you want, actually, I dare you to throw them as far as you can!"

Seeing how one of these children was crazier than the other, the brothers' eyes travelled back and forth from Himeko to Killua, noticing that the pair were on the same page about this. They shouldn't have picked a fight with kids in the first place; at the end of the day they were still kids and loved to pull pranks. Killua just shrugged too before he threw the two tags in opposite directions.

"You have four days left. You can try and find those two tags if you still want to, but I sensed someone else who is after them, so maybe you should hurry up," he kindly informed them, leaving the three Amori brothers looking around the forest again, hoping to spot whoever he was talking about.

_"Someone else?"_ Himeko asked herself, looking up at the trees. Just then, she saw a quick flash move by, but she couldn't make out who or what it was, _"Was someone else watching?" _She was surprised, whoever that was must have been there before she even made it there and she didn't sense or hear a thing. If she turned out to be his target, she would have just lost her own tag. The Amori brothers ran off after hearing the news of someone being after their tags, while Himeko and Killua remained behind watching them run off like three buffalos.

Now that they were out of sight, Killua started to wonder how far Himeko had gotten with this challenge. It clearly looked like she hasn't acquired her target's tag yet, but nonetheless, Killua decided to ask. "Have you found your target yet?"

"No, I found everyone else but my target," she answered, "but at least I know who my target is now. There is one place I haven't searched yet, which is the mountains, so I guess I'll check there next."

"Need help?" He offered, knowing that she would more or less reject his offer. She still seemed to be cautious of him, but he couldn't help but feel bored not having anything to do for the next three days, "I'm pretty much done now," he let her know.

"No, I'll be fine," just as he predicted, she rejected his offer immediately. "Go back and chill or help Gon and the others. I don't need your help!" She knew her choice of words made her sound rude and ungrateful, but she knew that Killua wasn't exactly trying to help her in the first place. Sure, he provided her with crucial information about her clan the other night, but in a way he did it for his own amusement and he didn't even do it for free. He told her to stay awake in return and hold a conversation with him so he doesn't get bored. In a way, she thought it was the same case this time around. Killua was friends with Gon, but she didn't know what he thought of Kurapika and Leorio. She knew in fact that he didn't view her as a friend, but more of an acquaintance after she bluntly told him that she didn't trust him at all. She concluded that his sudden acts of kindness were actually to keep himself occupied with something while Gon wasn't around. Whether it was following her in silence, watching her fight or just arguing with her, he would still be preoccupied with something.

Without further ado, Himeko set off to get find her target and acquire his tag. It was only day three, so she had a couple more days to go and at least she knew who her target was now. "Um.. the mountains are the other way," Killua pointed out, seeing her walk off in the wrong direction. Himeko stopped walking and rushed in the opposite way.

"I knew that!" she laughed embarrassedly, before proceeding to walk towards the mountains, "I was just testing you!"

_"Don't tell me that she has no sense of direction,"_ he thought, seeing how she had no clue on where she was heading, _"Whatever, I'll go back to the boat."_

Himeko kept going down a path she found, and she made sure she was going in the right direction by climbing trees to check whether the mountains were straight ahead once in a while. As she got closer, she could see the mountains much better. Hours of walking later, she found her target knocked out. She checked whether there was anyone else around, checking whether the coast was clear. She moved closer towards the unconscious examinee to check up on him. Since there was no movement, she went closer and knelt down besides him to check the pulse on his wrist.

_"No pulse." _He was dead. His body was stiff, suggesting that he had been dead for a long time now. _"He was probably killed by someone who wanted to get a closer look at his tag. What a horrible way to die."_

She felt a little guilty looking at the dead corpse in front of her, but she had to get his tag in order to pass. Before taking the tag, she made sure to shut his eyes and paid her respects. She spared the corpse another glance before deciding to head back.

After aimlessly wandering around for a couple of days, she only had one day left before the fourth phase was over. She didn't know where she was, all she knew was that she had to walk in the opposite directions of the mountains. She hoped to get back in time, and if not, she could kiss her Hunter license good bye for a year. If she did fail, she could use the year to practice reading maps and being able to get her way around places. But for now, she decided to lie down in a safe place and get a bit of rest before continuing her journey.

...

_"Himeko-sama? Himeko-sama, it is your turn to be 'it'!" The voice belonged to a young girl who was clearly younger than her but had very similar features. You could tell that they were related._

_"Sakura, you should ask Himeko-sama if she wants to be 'it' first!" It was a slightly older boy who had the same black hair and blue eyes, "If she doesn't want to, then I will take her turn for her."_

_"Seriously you two, stop calling me Himeko-sama," Himeko ended up interrupting their conversation, "It's Himeko! Plain, old Himeko is fine!"_

_"Mother will scold us if we don't address you properly," another one said. "Although your older brother Hakuryuu-sama will become the heir, we have to address you with the same amount of respect."_

_"Cut it out you all!" she continued to try and convince her cousins, "I'm your cousin, so Himeko is fine. If your mothers scolds you, just tell them I told you to call me that."_

_"Himeko-sama, if you want I don't mind taking your turn to be it," another one of her cousins offered. By now, every single one of her cousins had offered to take her turn if she'd rather hide than seek, but she found that unfair on them._

_"No, I'll be it. It's only fair that way. Besides, it's Himeko!" She repeated. The five year old Himeko was playing 'kick the can' with her cousins. It was a game she had read about in a book where the characters were all playing the same game. She told her cousins about it and they ordered one of the servants to bring them an empty can to play with. "I'll start counting so you all hide!"_

_Himeko placed the can down and closed her eyes before she started counting. As soon as she started counting, her cousins all ran around the yard trying to find a place to hide. Most of them hid in places so it was easy for Himeko to find them. It was something they all did when Himeko had to find them, although she never really liked it. When it was her turn to hide, they made sure to look for her last and when it was her turn to find everyone, they made sure to hide somewhere where she could easily find them. It was as if she was spoon fed while playing a simple game that was supposed to be fun._

_After she finished counting, she opened her eyes and began wandering around their yard to find her cousins. But when she walked past the hallway, she heard voices approaching them._

_"Your lecturer will be here in ten minutes. After the two hour class, we will bring you your lunch. You will have half an hour to eat before the next lecturer arrives. Afterwards, your archery teacher has rescheduled tomorrow's class for today. Your martial arts teacher will also be visiting you this evening to have a three hour training session with you in the dojo." the servant stopped talking as soon as he saw Himeko. "Good day, Himeko ojou-sama!"_

_"Good day," Himeko bowed back before her gaze was averted to her brother. At this point, he was thirteen; the oldest out of all the children in the clan. He was also the only one who would never participate in their little games for obvious reasons. Math, science, literature, geography, history, archery, dance, martial arts, swordsmanship, this, that, he was way too preoccupied with all these classes to have any time left to enjoy himself. "Hakuryuu nii-sama, would you like to play 'kick the can' with us?"_

_Hakuryuu didn't say a word and only spared his little sister a quick glance, knowing that he didn't have enough time to waste talking to her. It was the sad reality, but very true. If he attended this lecture late, he would end up delaying all of his classes and waste the time of all of his teachers._

_"Himeko!" A sharp voice echoed through the hallway, footsteps approached them at a fast pace. It was their mother, "Your brother has better things to do than play your silly little games with you. Sebastian, take Hakuryuu to his study room. He shall not be late to his lecture."_

_"Very well," Sebastian bowed before he obediently left with Hakuryuu to the study room. Himeko and her mother watched them leave and once they've left, her mother turned to her._

_"Listen my dear," she started off, "I know it might be tempting to fool around at your age, but you should realise that you are different from your cousins. You are smart enough to understand your position in this clan. I have explained a few times already that you will have to grow up to be just as smart and talented as your brother. You will have to support your brother when he becomes the head of the clan as his wife." In her opinion, Himeko at age five should be mature enough to understand how much responsibilities she would be carrying in the future. At the age where she would start to learn how to properly write and read, she already knew how to write long, well structured essays and somewhat make sense of a couple of journals with the aid of a dictionary._

_"But mother, I don't want to marry him. I just want him to play with us."_

_"Nonsense! He is the heir for our clan, he has no time to be playing games and as for you, you better sort yourself out sooner or later," she snapped at her, "Why do you think we gave birth to you? I married your father when I was just sixteen and we are both first cousins. We simply didn't want any conflict when picking a bride for your brother so we prayed for a girl and luckily, you were born as a girl. The Inoues are nobles that do not wish for their blood to be dirtied with the blood of commoners."_

_"I love brother as a brother."_

_"That's fine, no one told you to love him. When marrying, love isn't what we look for, we simply aim for the best to marry the best. You will learn to look past your sibling relationship once you get married." __Her mother said her final words before she walked down the corridor until she wasn't to be seen anymore, leaving Himeko behind. __Whether her mother actually realised this or not, she made Himeko feel completely useless. She made it sound like there was no significant meaning behind her existence, she was a mere tool to be used for the clan's future, to avoid any further conflict between clan members. She didn't even feel like a human being, but just like an object, a trophy to be given to her older brother once she was old enough. Thinking about it this way, it was sickening. Neither of the siblings had romantic feelings for each other. Himeko looked up to Hakuryuu, seeing him as someone she should aim to be like. Hakuryuu viewed her as the younger sister he had to protect for the rest of his life. _

_..._

"Oi!" Himeko felt someone lightly poking her arm with what appeared to be a stick, "Wake up, you won't be able to pass this phase if you sleep through it!"

Himeko slowly woke up to see Killua next to her. She looked around and suddenly remembered that she was still taking the Hunter exam. It was just a dream, but she had noticed that lately she has been having a lot of dreams about her clan; especially after Killua had told her about the possibility of her brother being alive.

"Thank god, Killua you are here. I got lost for two days!" She immediately bursted out in joy, "I thought I wouldn't be able to get back and fail the exam!"

"What are you talking about? The meeting spot is just around the corner."

* * *

**A/n** : One more chapter and then it's the Zoldyck arc. I can't wait to write and publish the arc after that since I brainstormed a lot of ideas.

Also, let me explain the marriage thing in the Inoue clan since it sounds pretty messed up (although it's meant to sound messed up). The members in the clan marry within the clan so no one changes their pure noble blood they carry. Also, I should have mentioned this in the story but I didn't get a good point to put this in. Himeko's mother and father are first cousins and the mother was only able to marry the father since he did not have any sisters. It caused conflict between some members with potential brides since they all wanted their daughters to marry the heir. To avoid this, Himeko's parents hoped for a daughter and thus luckily for them, Himeko was born. And no, Hakuryuu won't be a love interest before anyone assumes that!

Anyways, thank you for all the positive feedback. Thank you to all the people who've subscribed and followed and reviewed but also to everyone who has simply taken the time to read.

P.s - yes, their servant/butler is called Sebastian. Black Butler anyone? Although, the butler in this isn't one hell of a butler...


	11. Passing the Exam

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 10**

_Passing the Exam_

...

"Kou, Killua! You made it!" Gon waved as Himeko and Killua headed back. It seemed like Gon, Kurapika and Leorio also managed to get hold of their opponents' tags. Well, they got this far so Himeko would have been surprised if they didn't pass this round. There weren't that many examinees left; most of them must have still been inside the forest either lost, defeated or worst of all, dead. Either way, the phase on Zevil island managed to narrow the examinees down to just a few who were left standing, and looking around there were familiar faces waiting to pass the next phase of the exam and get closer to becoming a Hunter. Seeing some of the remaining examinees however, they wished that they weren't there. Hisoka managed to pass, but then again that wasn't much of a surprise. Then there was that creepy guy with needles stuck in the head, walking around like one of those wind up dolls. Other familiar faces included that overly talkative ninja that gave out business cards a while back, and that self absorbed shorty. Other than that, there was the old martial artist who didn't talk much.

"I finished four days ago, and I decided to go out on a walk when I found this idiot sleeping around the corner claiming she was lost," Killua explained.

"I walked around for two days after I got my opponent's tag," Himeko sighed, remembering how many times she must have taken the same wrong turn. She eventually realised that she had been walking around in circles before she decided to take the other route, "How was I meant to know that the goal was right around the corner?"

"You managed to walk around the whole forest twice in those two days, how can anyone possibly be so bad at directions?"

Himeko was smart for her age, but what was more astounding about her was her ability to get lost so easily. The fact that she was able to get to Whale island itself was a miracle, and the fact that she was able to get around by herself was a miracle itself. In some cases, miracles did occur. "I'm not bad, I just take my time and enjoy the scenery," she made up an excuse, "Besides, how do you know I walked around the forest twice? I don't remember telling you."

"I was bored so..."

"...you stalked me? I told you firmly that I didn't need or want your help!" She started yelling at him. No matter how much closer they seemed at this point, Himeko still didn't think she could trust him and she refused to get help from anyone she didn't want to be indebted to. But that was when she actually remembered the things she did over the past two days. "Wait, did you see me bathe?!"

"What's there to see?" He shrugged indifferently, "Even I have more curves than you." Although Himeko and Killua were quietly walking back not uttering a single word to each other, they started to argue all of the sudden when they were around everyone else.

"Hey Kurapika, is it just me or did they just start fighting when they saw us. It's hard to believe that they managed not to bite each other's heads off in three days," Leorio whispered into Kurapika's ear.

Kurapika couldn't help but agree with Leorio on this one, "Indeed!"

...

All together, ten people managed to pass the Zevil island phase. The remaining examinees got back into the airship and were told that they were able to rest before their final challenge. However, none of them were told what the last challenge was, which left them all wondering. The examinees were all gathered in one room and discussed the possible challenges they would have had to face in the final phase. For this, they all worked together trying to come up with suggestions and surprisingly, even Hisoka remained behind to hear suggestions from fellow candidates.

"Does anyone have an idea of what might come up?" Leorio asked, hoping that anyone would at least have a suggestion. Surprisingly, most of the remaining examinees were rookies, so they were all new to this. No one had a clue, and they all ended up eyeing each other, trying to come up with a possible idea. The rookies all turned to Bodoro, a candidate that took the exam the previous year, but he didn't get that far. But you know the saying; wisdom comes with age.

Bodoro was in deep thoughts, calculating all the possibilities, "The first phase tested our stamina, second tested our knowledge on different areas, and also our courage, the third tested our skills to work together in a team, and lastly the fourth tested our abilities to survive in a forest where all odds are turned against you." The others looked at him with anticipation. Bodoro was starting to make some sense out of all of it, and was starting to put all the puzzle pieces together. All he had to do now was figure out the last piece to the puzzle, and that was when it finally hit him, "I've got it!" He suddenly exclaimed, "The last challenge of the Hunter exam will consist of a written test!"

_Dun dun dun... _His unexpected answer threw all the rookies off guard, and they were speechlessly wondering whether they actually had a chance to pass now. Even Hisoka for that matter was surprisingly taken back by Bodoro's conclusion. He couldn't pass anymore, not even by killing another examiner off just like last year. The men in the room looked around, hoping that anyone would have a way to talk the Chairman out of it, but there was one person who smirked compared to the rest.

"I had a gut feeling!" Himeko exclaimed confidently, making everyone turn her way, waiting for her to explain her reasoning, "Think about it, when you think of exams you usually think about written papers. You gotta use your brains during an exam, and what better way to test knowledge than using an old fashion paper?" Her theory was so simple minded, in fact it made some of them look at her with dumbfounded expressions. On a second thought though, she did have a valid point. In school most exams were written papers, so the last phase could possibly consist of a written paper.

After hearing her plausible reasoning, Gon was the first one to start panicking out of the bunch, "What do I do now, I haven't studied for the test," he groaned in utter frustration, "I should have actually tried paying attention when Aunt Mito was teaching me!"

"I'm going to fail!" Leorio had a mental breakdown of his own, but that was when Pokkle had enough, stood up from the floor and made his way towards the door. Seeing how he was suddenly in a hurry, Leorio was curious on where he was heading to, "Where are you going?"

"Library," he answered pointing upwards, "We still have time to cram some information into our heads!"

Leorio and Hanzo accompanied Pokkle to the library. While two of them actually revised, Leorio just sat there making cheat notes to take into the exam, and after he was found out by Pokkle, they started arguing. Leorio invited Kurapika to tag along, but he just refused as his knowledge was good enough to pass a written paper and Bodoro had the exact same thoughts as him. Gon and Killua didn't want to study, so they just started to explore the airship while Himeko decided to take a quick power nap. Last minute studying doesn't exactly do much, so she didn't bother with it, and only god knew what Hisoka and Gittarakur were up to; their whole existence up until now remained a mystery to the rest of the candidates.

Some time passed and all of the sudden, there was an announcement calling candidates to the Chairman's room one by one. Himeko waited patiently for her name to be called up, and when it did she went to the Chairman's office. She didn't quite know what to expect, and she didn't meet Gon or the others on the way, so she didn't have an opportunity to ask what was going to happen either. Worst case scenario, the last phase was going to take place inside the office in front of her. She took a deep breath before she opened the door and stepped inside.

"Excuse me?" She said as she entered the room. Netero's office was fairly small, and only three people could comfortably sit inside it. Due to the small size of it, there wasn't much furniture inside. It was a simple room, with a white coffee table in the middle and two, yellow sofas around it. There were some floral decor places around, possibly by Beans who would most likely be in charge of all these odd jobs.

"Himeko Inoue, please let yourself in," the Chairman greeted her with a wide smile plastered on his face. After that ball game the other night, they weren't strangers anymore so at least Himeko could judge what kind of person Netero really was. In contrast to his age, Netero acted dumb and silly most of the time but something told her that he was more than what meets the eye. He already occupied one of the two sofas, so she decided to sit down on the unoccupied sofa in front of the Chairman, waiting for the challenge. However, it turned out to be an interview instead. It surprised her a little, but then she recalled a similar event back on the ship. The captain on that ship seemed to be interested in what kind of people the candidates were, and the chairman seemed to share the same interest as him. She had only considered the Hunter's Association as a large co-operation monitoring Hunters and choosing new Hunters each year. Instead, this all reminded her more of a job interview, or even a college interview rather than an exam. The Hunter's Association was obviously interested in seeing what kind of people joined to become Hunters, rather than just blindly handing out licenses. The Chairman then continued, "From the Inoue clan, am I right?"

"Yes," she nodded in response, knowing that the Chairman was well aware of the existence of her clan. The Inoues did sometimes hire professional Hunters to do certain tasks for them, so someone like Netero who served as Chairman for years must have at least met her father. Of course, the fact that Himeko was the Head's daughter was possibly something he did not know, and Himeko chose not to share that much about her either. Instead, she sat there waiting for him continue.

"It's rare to see a member of the Inoue clan outside their little world," he commented still not believing it himself as he looked through her application. Besides her family name, the dark blue eyes and black hair were a huge giveaway.

"Well, here I am!" She chuckled nervously, trying to ease up the situation.

"I'm sincerely sorry for your loss, but the Hunter Association still hasn't figured out who did it," he told her with deep regret, "It was quite a strange case, but I didn't think there would be a survivor, especially not after we have found no survivors at the site of the crime."

"Honestly, I'm just as clueless as the rest of you are," she openly admitted, "the sole reason for me to take the Hunter exam is to find more clues, and I've managed to gain so much more information I have in four days than I have in four years."

"Have you learnt to adjust to the outside world yet?" He asked her, "The Association would have taken you in and cared for you until you were old enough to live by yourself if we found you back then."

Himeko nodded, "I admit, it was hard at first, but I got used to it. I've managed to learn a lot, learn things that you can't learn from reading a book."

"That's good to hear," he smiled gently, but then he proceeded with the interview, knowing that there were still a few examinees he still had to interview after this. He began laying out pictures of all the remaining candidates of the exam in front of her and told her to take a good look at every single one of them. There wasn't much point in doing this to be honest, Himeko knew exactly who was still left and though she knew more about some examinees than others, it didn't change the fact that she wanted to stay away from some of them. Nonetheless, she scanned the pictures and waited for Netero to ask his question,"Which of these don't you want to fight?"

It didn't take that long for her to come up with an answer, "All of them!"

"You can't pick them all," Netero started giggling at how she started using the question to her own advantage, "You have to fight someone in order to get your license!"

This time around, Himeko started thinking more seriously about the question, "Well, there are Gon, Kurapika and Leorio who have a goal to fulfil just like me, so I don't want to fight with them. If I had to go up against them, I wouldn't hold back because I need to get hold of a license this year but I'd still feel guilty for not holding back against them," she started off and then looked over at Killua's picture, "I don't know what Killua's real motive is for taking the Hunter exam. He said he is doing it as a way to kill his boredom, but I still wonder whether that is actually true. Either way, he is strong, so I don't want to go up against him!" She finally took a glance at Hisoka and Gittarakur's pictures, "Hisoka is probably the strongest one out of them, and also the most merciless, so wanting to go up against him would be suicide. The other guy is just too mysterious. I haven't even heard him talk yet and judging by his looks, he looks like trouble. Whoever or whatever he is, I don't want to find out."

"What about the other three?" He asked pointing at Bodoro, Hanzo and Pokkle's pictures she obviously skipped. After hearing the past interviews, he expected the same answers. Gon, Kurapika, Leorio and Killua said pretty much the same thing, so her answers were pretty predictable.

"It would be shameful to beat up elderly people, but that old man looks experienced, so I guess it's okay for me to beat him up," she then turned to look at the picture of Hanzo, "The ninja is a little talkative, but he has probably been through a lot of training too. He is a ninja after all, so I would really expect less," she concluded, "I'm not sure what the other guy is capable of, but he seems a lot less dangerous than Killua, Hisoka and Gittarakur."

"Very well," he approved after hearing her response, "Which of these would you want to fight?"

"Anyone who is not on my 'Top three dangerous guys' list," she replied almost instantly. First being Hisoka, second being Gittarakur and third being Killua. Although Hanzo and Bodoro could very well be stronger than Killua, that didn't make them dangerous. In contrast to Killua, they would have at least been raised in a slightly normal household. Hisoka and Gittarakur where obvious answers, but to killing was once second nature to Killua too. A harmless fight could suddenly escalate in him losing control of his own thoughts, and that was she could lose her life. Just the thought of those three lusting blood was enough to send shivers down her spine, so she decided to forget about it and continue answering the question. "I'd rather not go up against Gon, Kurapika and Leorio either. I respect their aspirations and I want them all to pass, but I also want to pass the exam myself."

"Thank you!" The Chairman started gathering the pictures up into a neat pile again, "That concludes our interview. Do you have any more questions?"

"The last phase isn't a written paper, is it?"

"You are the fourth person who asked me that," he commented in a rather surprised voice, "No, it won't be a written paper. I will announce the last phase of the exam after the interviews are over. It won't take too long, so make sure to rest up until then."

With that, Himeko got up from her seat and left the room wondering what the final challenge would be. At least it didn't have anything to do with a written paper. Although she would have been fine, she doubted whether Leorio and Gon could cope with the pressure. She had a good feeling that the interview had to do with their final task, and the only non personal question Netero asked was about with examinee she was comfortable going up against. _"Could it be a one on one match?"_ She wondered, recalling that they haven't actually done one yet. Although it seemed rather plain as a challenge, it was the most reasonable explanation behind the sudden interview. But that raised another question, _"He asked me who I would want to go up against, and who I don't want to go up against. Any nice person would put me up against someone I don't mind fighting, but I need to remember what kind of person he is." _Netero was childlike and challenged three children to a game that was impossible to win. Netero could make her fight any of the three examinees she didn't care about, or he could make her fight her friends or worse, one of the top three dangerous guys. _"I'm sure no one actually wanted to go up against Hisoka, so the chance for me to go up against him is still just one ninth,"_ that thought was more than enough to set her mind at peace for now.

While Himeko was walking down the hallway deep in thoughts, she was suddenly greeted by Gon and Killua who waited for her to come out, "How did it go?" Gon asked, snapping her out of her thoughts.

"Who did you say you wanted to be put against?" Killua came straight to the point, giving her no time to reply to Gon's question. Himeko looked at Gon, and it seemed like he was more interested in who she chose to go up against rather than how the rest of the interview went.

"Anyone except Gon, Kurapika, Leorio and examinees on my list of the 'top three most dangerous guys'," she answered honestly, "Oh, by the way, that list includes you too Killua. No offence!"

"No offence taken, I feel a little honoured to be included in it," he shrugged, "Besides, being able to be granted a Hunter's license without facing Hisoka would be too good to be true. You managed to snatch his badge in the previous round, didn't you Gon?"

"Yeah, but in the end he just handed it over to me, I didn't have to go up against him," Gon felt like he didn't exactly deserve to pass the previous round since Hisoka just passed his badge over to him and said he'll only take it back if Gon was able to land a punch on him. It was a challenge, a challenge he now had to accept because he was in his debt.

"To be honest, I got my badge without a fight too," Himeko lowered her tone as she admitted this. She still felt bad for her target, "My target was dead when I found him, so I was contemplating whether or not I should take the tag off him. Thinking back, I feel a little bad for him. He wasn't even killed by his hunter, someone killed him to get a closer look at his tag."

"There is not much you two can do about it," Killua pointed out, "You had no choice, you had to get the tag to get into the next phase and he wouldn't have been able to use it himself anymore either. And all Gon can do is get stronger in order to face Hisoka and return his tag."

"Well, we just have one more round left to go, so let's give it our best," Himeko smiled, "Let's hope that we don't have to fight each other and if we do, let's not bear any hard feelings. I want that license as much as anyone else does, so if I end up fighting you, I won't go easy on you, just keep that in mind."

"Right!" Gon nodded, expecting nothing less from her, "Let's do our best!"

"Does anyone want to have a look around the airship?" Killua asked the two. Although the final round of the exam was just minutes away, they couldn't do much about it now. If they pass, they pass, if not then there's always the next year. It wasn't worth stressing over anymore, and Killua knew better than the other two, "Can you get us some food from the kitchen staff again?"

"Sure, that's easy!"

...

An hour after all the interviews finished, the Chairman and Beans got the remaining examinees to gather up in the large fighting arena before Beans started to explain the rules. The final phase of the Hunter exam consisted of a series of one-to-one matches, just like the majority managed to predict by now. The rules were simple; the examinees all fight against each other and if you secured one win, you will be granted a Hunter's license. In the end, only one person will fail the entire exam. If you killed your opponent, you were automatically disqualified and the remaining candidates automatically pass. That meant that one person in particular had to hold back his urge to kill someone, and all eyes were directed at him.

Beans announced the participants of the first match; Hanzo and Gon. The two examinees moved to the centre of the arena while the remaining examinees scattered around to watch. Netero seemed to have invited the other examiners too to watch, and they were all anticipating the first match. Hanzo looked strong, but Gon did manage to surprise a couple of them. Gon decided to make the first move and Hanzo anticipated this. Hanzo easily countered his attack with one of his own. "You can't win, kid!" He informed Gon full of confidence, "If you don't want to end up dead, you better give up and try again next year." Those were the words Hanzo said as he continued to beat up Gon up to the point where it became unbearable to watch. Gon stubbornly refused and continued to get hit by Hanzo who clearly had the upper hand in this match.

"Hey, you're the Chairman, aren't you? You should stop him, this shouldn't be allowed!" Leorio yelled at Chairman Netero, but he simply refused. Hanzo wasn't doing anything against the rules after all. He was just fighting Gon and trying to get him to forfeit the match as soon as possible. If he truly meant what he said and started to kill Gon, then Netero was in a position to stop the match and one of the two would have to forfeit the match in order for it to stop. Gon had no chance to fight back at this point, he received one punch after another.

"If you keep on punching him like that, I will take Gon's place and kill you myself!" Leorio warned Hanzo and was about to step onto the court, but he was stopped by Kurapika. The rules were created so people like Hisoka didn't use this as a killing spree, but at this point the rules were their own disadvantage, and Kurapika knew that.

"If you step in now, not only you but Gon will also be disqualified for receiving help from outside," Beans informed the audience, which stopped Leorio from moving any further. Being disqualified was no problem for him, he could save Gon and try again the next year, but he didn't want to ruin Gon's chance too.

"Can't we just talk Gon out of this? At this rate, he is going to end up in a pretty bad shape and who knows whether he would be able to recover. If he forfeits now them he might be able to win the next match," Himeko pointed out to everyone but no one replied to her, "Gon-" She was stopped when she was about to call Gon.

"Stop, you'll only waste his breath on him. He won't be giving up anytime soon," Killua explained, just seeing the determined look in Gon's eyes. He wouldn't give up even if he ended up getting his bones broken, but that was what Himeko dreaded the most. He knew that getting him to surrender was almost an impossible task, but if he lost this match then there were still many others to go. Hanzo didn't look like he was going to go easy on Gon, and they witnessed this since the start of the match. When she was about to interrupt once more, he stopped her again, "It's got to do with a man's pride, you won't understand. Just believe in Gon!"

Those words were enough to keep Himeko back for a now. A man's pride; it sounded completely cliche, but if it was something like an honours code to men then Himeko couldn't go against it. She just had to sit back like everyone else and hope for Gon to make a comeback. Hanzo on the other hand started to get frustrated with Gon's stubbornness.

"If you don't give up, I'll break your arm," he warned, and he looked very serious about his threat. Gon didn't mutter a word and screamed in pain when Hanzo held his word about breaking his arm.

Once again, Leorio stepped forward, "Don't stop me, Kurapika. I won't stop until I beat that guy up," Leorio said to Kurapika, knowing that no one would stop him now.

"Stop you?" Kurapika asked furiously as his eyes changes into a beautiful, scarlet red, "That's the last thing I'll do."

Hearing Gon's ear piercing scream was more than enough to make Himeko clench her fist together. The sudden urge to break something with her own, bare hands made her nails pierce deep into her skin, causing droplets of blood to roll down her pale hand, and then onto the floor. She couldn't make much of a fuss, she had to stay quiet for Gon. But if this went any further, she had to step in and the two boys were on the same page as her.

"Stay calm you three, and don't do anything reckless," Killua tried to keep the three calm, although he himself wanted to personally break Hanzo's neck at this point, "Stay quiet for Gon!"

Hanzo began talking about his past and his harsh training as a ninja and while he was too absorbed in his own background story, Gon managed to break free by kicking Hanzo. He got back onto his two feet leaving the audience astonished, _"Yes Gon, now stuff that talkative ninja's mouth once and for all!"_ Himeko started to cheer for him inside her head, hoping not to draw too much attention to herself.

"Can't we settle this without hurting each other? You won't surrender yourself, so I have to think of another way for you to surrender," Gon started to think out loud now that he found his composure again. He somehow managed to lift the tense mood and make everyone around him laugh, everyone but Killua. How could they laugh when Gon had obviously no chance against Hanzo? He thought he understood Gon more than anyone else at this point, but seeing the scene in front of him made him realise that he didn't. If he were in that position, he wouldn't have hesitated to finish the job off, and looking around the room he knew that everyone else would have done the same thing as him. But why was Gon being so stubborn about not wanting to hurt Hanzo when he clearly broke some of his bones?

Hanzo took out a knife and gave Gon one last warning, but Gon didn't move an inch. It left him with no choice, "I surrender!" Hanzo announced before walking off in annoyance, back to the sidelines. He has had more than enough of Gon for the day, and the fact that no matter what he did Gon still didn't surrender or at least bear a grudge against him, frustrated him a lot.

"Eh? No, don't surrender. We can work out a way for the two of us to-" Gon started off but Hanzo delivered a final punch which knocked Gon out before surrendering. Gon who was now out cold was taken to the medical room to be treated. However, he was officially the first person to pass the Hunter exam.

The next match was between Killua and Pokkle, which Killua surrendered and walked off before any fighting even happened. He didn't think much of Pokkle, and though he just did him a favour, Pokkle was left staring in awe. He also passed the exam but by default. Kurapika was up next against the person no one wanted to go up against. Both Kurapika and Hisoka took their positions at the centre of the arena, waiting for Beans announce for the match to begin.

"Good luck Kurapika!" Himeko wished him and Kurapika gave them a slight nod, trying to reassure them. They got ready for the match and it finally began. It was clear that Hisoka would have the upper hand even before the match started and since it was Hisoka fighting, everyone around them paid close attention. Kurapika didn't want to lose either, he had to win in order to get revenge on the Phantom Troupe, so he simply refused to give up or die then and there. After beating Kurapika up a little, Hisoka leaned in and whispered something in Kurapika's ear before moving back to the sidelines after surrendering. Whatever Hisoka whispered seemed to have affected him judging by his facial expression but nonetheless, Kurapika finally managed relax and headed back, joining his friends.

"Congrats buddy!" Leorio congratulated Kurapika who's head was hung low, "What's with the long face?"

"I only won because he surrendered," he let out a loud, frustrated sigh, "Otherwise, I would have been killed."

"Stop sulking about it!" Killua said, "You got your license, that's what matters now."

"He's right, all you have to do is become stronger than he is," Himeko agreed with him, "Besides, now you aren't just Kurapika, you are Hunter Kurapika."

Although he had won by default, his friends managed to lift his spirits, "Thanks."

The next match was between Himeko and Bodoro. Thankfully, Chairman Netero actually paid attention during her interview and paired her up against someone she didn't actually mind fighting. Although she'd rather not fight at all, she had no choice than to beat him and pass the Hunter exam.

"I'm up next!" She chirped confidently before heading off.

"Good luck brat," Leorio cheered from the side, "Show the old man what you're made off!"

"Will do," she waved back.

"She's strong. You could say that she has the strength to tear down this pace all with just her hands," Kurapika thought out loud, remembering everything Himeko had told him about. He was obviously referring to the effects of the drug she had told him about, and only him and Killua actually knew the truth about the origins of her real powers.

"You're right, she might actually stand a chance against me," Killua added, not knowing the extents of her real strength, "and I'm a pro at killing."

"She did win the match with that guy in Trick Tower, but wasn't that because he provoked her?" Leorio asked, not knowing what they were talking about. She didn't particularly look strong, and her anger could have caused her to just flip and beat that guy. Of course he didn't know about the drug, Royal Beasts or any of Himeko's other secrets. She has only had the opportunities to tell Killua and Kurapika so far.

"No, she's a beast," Killua's lips curve upwards, as his eyes grew darker, looking forward to see Himeko's full potential. He had heard of the Royal Beasts from his father before as they were associated with the Underworld, but he had never met anyone who had been affected by the drug. When she first told him about it one week ago, it caught his interest, "I can't wait to see how long it would take for the beast to tear down this place," Kurapika who knew what he was referring to nodded at Killua's statement and watched intensely leaving Leorio deeply confused.

Beans finally started the match between the two, and Bodoro spent a while examining his opponent. Himeko took this as the perfect opportunity to attack and ran towards her opponent but was stopped, "I surrender!" Bodoro announced making Himeko trip and fall flat onto her face, "I don't fight little children, especially not little girls." Bodoro walked back to the sidelines leaving Himeko with her head hung low.

_"I said I never wanted to fight, but he thinks I'm weak…."_ She thought to herself as she slowly returned to her side.

"Congrats, you passed!" Kurapika welcomed her back with a wide smile, only to get a quiet mumble from her in return.

"To be honest, I expected a longer match," Leorio was the first one to start teasing her, "Especially after all the hype from these two."

"Don't listen to him. You aren't just Kou anymore, you are Hunter Kou!" Kurapika tried to cheer her up with the exact same words she used on him, making Killua and Leorio snicker at the back. She took a deep breath and decided to look up again. She came to get her hands on a Hunter's license, and she did manage to get her hands on one whether she fought or not. With the license, she can finally continue her search, so she didn't have any time to sulk. Besides, she didn't exactly want to fight in the first place, so it all turned out perfectly for her.

Killua was called up not too soon after. His opponent was Gittarakur; the creepy dude with the pins stuck in his head. Unfazed by his appearance, Killua coolly walked off to the centre of the arena, but seeing his opponent made his friends worry. It was the stiff way off walking, the blue-ish, purple skin colour, as if he wasn't a human being at all. Although Hisoka obviously made them feel threatened, at least he looked like any other human being. Gittarakur stuck out like a sore thumb and although there is a small chance for him to be a nice person, they highly doubted it. The only reason Killua was able to keep his cool was because of his previous occupation, otherwise he too would have had doubts about this match.

"He'll be alright, right? That guy looks creepy!" Himeko was the first one to voice out her opinion, knowing that Kurapika and Leorio had the exact same thoughts as her. The two elders looked at each other before giving her a not so reassuring nod. After all, no one was too sure how much damage this guy could cause.

Beans started the match between the two, but something was off about Killua's opponent. Before Killua could attack and end the match just like he did back in Trick Tower, Gittarakur started pulling out the pins that were stick in his head one by one. Slowly, the shape of his whole body began to change, starting from the face, his short purple mohawk changed into long, silky black hair. The dark, blueish-grey complexion turned into a pale white, identical to Killua's own skin colour. After seeing this, even the calm and cool Killua didn't look so confident anymore. That wasn't it; this was the first time Killua seemed frightened by something, as if he had just seen a ghost.

"Aniki." Killua managed to utter a word in fear.

Plot twist after plot twist, the audience tried to keep up with the events, from Gittarakur's sudden change in appearance to Killua's sudden fear. He seemed to be on very familiar terms with this stranger, it was obvious judging from the cold sweat on Killua's forehead. Despite the match still being in progress, the audience seemed a lot more interested in the relationship between these two, "Aniki?"

"Kil, you've been a very bad boy," Gittarakur spoke in an emotionless tone that sounded almost threatening, "You ran off after injuring Milluki and mother. Mother cried so much after you left."

"I knew it, I knew it all along!" Leorio commented from the sidelines while pointing at Killua. "He is a spoiled brat! I was right all along!"

"Yeah, that's right!" Himeko ended up agreeing with him, but they quietened down when no one else reacted to their comment. Gittarakur wasn't done with Killua yet, it was as if he came all this way just to talk to his little brother.

"Mother was so happy to see you grow into a man, she cried tears of joy," Gittarakur continued, making Leorio and Himeko fall over on their heads in astonishment. The more they learn about his family, the crazier they got. "Come on, we have to go home. You're not ready for the Hunter exam yet, I will tell you when the time comes."

Gittarakur's voice was unemotional, but there was something strange about it. It stuck in their heads and repeated over and over again like a broken cassette tape. His low voice induced goosebumps and made their hairs stand up, but out of everyone, Killua had it the worst. They thought he would have been unaffected by his voice after hearing it for so many years, but that wasn't the case at all. His older brother's voice stuck inside his head, repeating over an over again, trying to manipulate him against his own will.

Killua's eyes were lost, they couldn't dare to leave his brother's. Yet a little voice inside him wanted to break free, "No, I don't want to leave," he muttered quietly, "I want to make friends with Gon and everyone."

"Friends?" His older brother asked in confusion. This was the first time Killua had made such an odd request, he couldn't understand why he wanted them when he had everything. "Why would you need friends?" Killua's brother's words made the three watching from the whole scene furious. Killua didn't try hard to become friends with them, but they knew how much he treasured Gon as his first true friend. He wasn't expressive about it, and in fact he wasn't expressive about many things, but after seeing him run around with Gon they could understand that. After all, they weren't that expressive about being friends with Gon either, Gon's way of talking was too natural and they were able to be their true selves around him. In that way, they could all relate to him. But unlike them he never wished to take the Hunter's exam for the license, he wanted to get an opportunity to befriend someone. "You don't need friends, Kil. You're an assassin."

"Killua, don't listen to him!" Leorio shouted, trying to snap him out of it. Killua couldn't fall for his brother's trap, especially when he was trying to control every aspect of Killua's life.

"Gon is already your friend, you two became friends long ago!" Himeko added, trying to remind him that his wish was already fulfilled and that all he had to do was hang onto it, "He considered you as his friend the day you first met!"

"Yeah, now beat your brother up like you did to every one of your other opponents!" But Leorio's words seemed to have little effect on Killua himself. They seemed to have affected his brother a lot more.

"Gon's already a friend, huh? That's no good!" Gittarakur thought out loud, "I know, if I kill that boy he won't come in Kil's way anymore." Those words snapped Killua out of his thoughts, but seeing him move towards the door didn't do much. All he could do was helplessly watch as his brother wanted to put an end to his new found friendship. His body was frozen, and only his eyes were able to follow his brother. Luckily though, Kurapika, Leorio, Himeko and even Hanzo what found new respect for Gon had enough of Gittarakur's threat to kill the unconscious Gon. They blocked his path, refusing to move.

"You aren't going anywhere buddy!" Although Leorio was possibly a lot more frightened than the rest, he didn't hesitate to speak his mind out of anger. Trying to sort out their family problem was one thing, but he wouldn't sit still and watch the innocent Gon being dragged into their mess. It didn't feel right to him. Himeko felt the same way as soon as Gon was suddenly dragged into their family quarrel. She had no idea what this was about, Killua was a run-away and there was no denying that his family, no matter their background would have been worried. His brother was manipulative and almost obsessive over his younger brother and when she realised that, she was slightly disturbed and somehow found the reason why Killua chose to run away in the first place. It reminded her of her own mother's obsession over her older brother, but it wasn't this intense so she couldn't begin to imagine how he must have felt living in a family like that. She couldn't interrupt a family quarrel no matter how much she started to pity him, until Gon was involved that is. Hanzo however confidently stood in front of the door with his arms crossed, warning him not to come any closer. He hated Gon's guts, but took a liking to him too after his fight with him.

"You can try making it past us," Kurapika added, "But, I don't think that's a wise idea." Kurapika was the only person who thought about this logically. Their match was still in progress, and Netero's rule still applied to them. He wasn't sure whether he came this far to take Killua back home, or whether he wanted to pass the Hunter exam himself. He wasn't too certain about it, but if he really wanted to take Killua back home he would have done it earlier on the exam and wouldn't have waited so long. It only made him assume that Killua's brother was after a license too.

Those words made him finally remember the rules and Kurapika's hunch was right, he did have the intentions of going home with a Hunter's license. "Hmm.. if I kill him now, then I'll be disqualified, right?" He thought out loud again, before he looked at the Chairman. "It's not against the rules to pass the exam and then kill him, right?"

"There's no such rule," The Chairman replied. Although the commotion was interrupting the rest of the exam, he wasn't in the position to step in and stop him. Killua's brother didn't violate any rules which still made him able to participate in the exam. That, and he knew very well where and when to draw the line.

"Okay, I'll just have to win this match," he moved closer to Killua, who in turn slowly backed away in fear, "Say Kil, shall we continue this match?" His eyes were just like those of a serpent, large, black and empty, and these orbs never left Killua's blue eyes once. As he got closer, there was no escape for him.

"I surrender," Killua managed to mutter out these words, before walking back with his head hung low. At this point, no one approached him seeing how he needed some time to himself. He was mentally exhausted after that encounter and although everyone thought he'd be fine, he really struggled to get to grips with himself. His taste of freedom didn't last too long; it was taken away from him when he started to enjoy it. The thought of him being able to kill Gon disturbed him, and if that happened it would be his fault. It was all emotional blackmail and Killua knew that game too well, but he didn't know the rules nor did he know how to win it. His brother obviously used something he treasured against him and got him to obey him by threatening to harm his friend.

While he was still in thoughts, the next match began between Leorio and Bodoro. When the two got ready to fight, Killua interjected. They didn't know what he wanted or why he was there all of the sudden, and Leorio tried his best to snap him out of it. His eyes were the same as his brother's, dark, empty and soulless. Whatever his brother did to him, he wasn't stable anymore. It wasn't too long before he killed Leorio's opponent and whilst everyone was caught up in the commotion, he used to opportunity to walk out of the room, not looking back and he did not return. It took everyone a while to realise that he was long gone, and that he wouldn't turn back.

Killua was disqualified and the 287th Hunter exam officially ended. Although no one was in the mood to celebrate, Beans let the new Hunters to a conference room for a presentation. The sudden turn of events with Gittarakur and Killua's relationship and Bodoro's death was too much for everyone to handle, and it spoilt their moods. Kurapika, Himeko and Leorio especially felt like there was something missing when they looked at the piece of plastic in their hands. It didn't seem right without both Gon and Killua there, the almighty Hunter's license just looked like a piece of plastic to them. Gon who had just woken up and heard about all the commotion from Satoz, interrupted the presentation and confronted Killua's older brother whose real name turned out to be Illumi Zoldyck.

With one hand still broken, his other hand grabbed Illumi's right hand and easily broke it out of anger, "Apologise to Killua!" he demanded. The Gon who would always smile and laugh was absolutely furious and the only way for him to vent out his anger was to make Illumi feel the same pain Killua did.

Although he now had a broken arm, Illumi remained unfazed. He was rather confused by Gon's sudden demands, "Why should I apologise?"

"You don't deserve to call yourself Killua's brother," Gon added, "Tell me where you took him to!"

"You make it sound like I've kidnapped him. He went back on his own will," Illumi made it seem like he didn't have anything to do with Killua's sudden disappearance. Gon looked around the lecture theatre and his eyes ended up on his friends who were all sitting there against their own will. They felt guilty, knowing that they weren't able to do anything for him. If maybe they tried harder, this wouldn't have happened at all and Killua would have been sitting with the right now. If only Gon wasn't unconscious they knew for a fact that Illumi wouldn't have had his way.

At this point the Chairman decided to interrupt the conversation, "We were just discussing that. Your friends have already filed a complaint."

"Killua has been acting strangely during the match with Gittarakur, or should I say Illumi," Kurapika began to explain "It is highly likely that Killua has been hypnotised or manipulated into killing Bodoro."

"Not just that, Killua and Illumi are both from a family of professional assassins" Himeko added, remembering all the crazy techniques Killua knew. "Having the skill to manipulate and hypnotise someone while in that business is quite likely, especially since it aids the task to assassinate someone with ease. We request for you to investigate this further, maybe you can double check the CCTV footages."

"Also, Killua could have just helped me win my match. If that is the case, I should have been disqualified too," Leorio pointed out.

"That's enough! There were no signs of manipulation so those are mere speculations. Why would Killua need to help Leorio who had a greater chance of winning in the first place. Bodoro was already injured, giving Leorio the upper hand when it came down to combat. Killua is a smart child and he should have been able to realise that," The Chairman explained making the trio sit back down in their seats quietly. It was frustrating to have no say in this matter. They were sure that Illumi used some kind of trick, but they weren't sure what he did and neither did Netero want to buy their accusations.

"Putting that aside, isn't there something fishy about your win too?" Pokkle started interrogating Kurapika, "Did you and Hisoka make some kind of deal? What did he whisper in your ear before he surrendered?"

Pokkle was trying to stir up trouble, and Kurapika was smart enough to realise that, "I'm not obligated to tell you."

"None of this matter anyway!" Gon interrupted their pointless argument, "We all passed and Killua didn't, Killua would have been able to pass but he didn't," he then turned and pointed at Illumi, "I will rescue Killua and I won't let you see him again!" Gon told. He eventually managed to calm himself down, determined to bring Killua back to where he belonged. After everyone has settled down and accepted their wins, Beans continued with the orientation and afterwards, they left the conference hall.

Outside the building, Gon once again confronted Illumi who had told him the location of their so-called hide out. It wasn't exactly a hide out as it was a famous tourist attraction and everyone knew where they lived. Their destination was Kukuroo mountain. Not only Gon but Kurapika, Himeko and Leorio were all willing to go and rescue their Killua together. Gon left to have a talk with Satoz, while Pokkle helped Kurapika and Leorio find the exact location of Kukuroo mountain and book tickets. During that time Himeko decided to change her clothes after having a shower. She changed into the spare set of clothes she had in her rucksack and left to find the other three so they can set off to Kukuroo mountain.

"Ah, feels nice to shower back in civilisation!" She stretched while finding her way back. It had been quite long since she had a proper hot, shower and she finally felt refreshed again. While she was heading back, she eventually started to hear footsteps following her. At first she didn't make anything of it, but the footsteps were always right behind her.

Himeko only turned around when she heard a voice coming from someone who was right behind her, "Had a nice bath?"

Seeing who it was, she immediately backed away, "Hisoka."

"Yes, I'm glad you remembered my name."

_"Who wouldn't?"_ She thought to herself, thinking back to all those times he purposely caught the attention of many around him. Whatever stunt he played, he made sure to do it in front of an audience, getting pleasure from the frightened faces watching him.

Hisoka quietly examined the young girl with wide yet sinister grin. From head to toe, he didn't leave one inch of her unexamined, especially her facial features. His eyes then caught the earrings peeking through her black hair, "Say, those earrings are quite an unique item. One of a kind I'm guessing, something passed down from your grandma?"

_"Is he trying to initiate a conversation?"_ She couldn't walk away at this point and who knew what Hisoka might do when she had her back turned towards him. She didn't know what he wanted from her, or what his true intentions were for starting a conversation with her. She had come across him once, and that was all the interaction they had in their entire life. But whatever it was, the fact that his eyes were still lingering on her made her feel very uneasy.

"Your face reminds me of someone I saw a couple years ago," he finally started to show his real intentions, "The exact same face, blue eyes, black hair, and the same beauty spot under the mouth, about this tall-" he briefly turned to take a glimpse of her shocked expression. He found it amusing playing mind games on her, "Quite an interesting lad I'd say, I think his name was Hakuryuu, or something like that."

Her eyes widened when she finally heard her brother's name being mentioned, "You!" She felt helpless, she didn't know what he might have done with her brother or whether he spared him just like he spared her. Although she wanted to punch the truth out of him, she just couldn't. Her muscles wouldn't move, and she was glad that they decided to stiffen up in front of Hisoka because one wrong move and she would end up dead.

"Don't worry, I won't kill you here, so you're free to go and rescue your friend," he informed her after getting a good taste of her frightened yet angered face, "After all, I have high hopes for all of you. It would be a waste to just kill you all off right now." Himeko stared at him blankly, trying to figure out his real motives. It was almost like Hisoka considered this all a game. "Go on, your friends must be worried about you," he told her, "Don't worry, we'll see each other soon enough."

She spent another minute in daze wondering whether she should ask him or not, but she decided not to ask him for any more information. He could be bluffing; killing his boredom by saying nonsense just to seeing her reaction. She decided to leave.

"The path you'll walk down looks interesting. I'll have fun watching you walk down that path, Kou-chan no _Himeko Inoue_."

* * *

**A/n -** Yaay ~ with this the Hunter Exam arc is done! Thanks for all the reviews, and everyone who favourited and followed this fanfic. Actually, thanks to everyone who actually bothered to read this fic. Also, if you left a review with a question as a guest I will reply in the review section, just to let you all know so I don't end up talking to myself.


	12. The Zoldyck Estate

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 11**

The Zoldyck Estate

...

"Wow, look at the scenery!" Himeko exclaimed in awe, looking out of the train window. The Hunter exam had officially come to an end a couple of hours ago, and after the celebration Gon, Himeko, Kurapika and Leorio set out to the Zoldyck estate in the Republic of Padokia. Kurapika was able to book the soonest tickets and after rushing through the traffic they managed to make it there on time. The journey was quite long, and except for Gon the others managed to take turns to take a short nap. Gon however remained stubborn and only had his thoughts fixed on getting Killua back, not wanting to imagine what he must be going through.

"Kurapika, pass me some of the snacks!" Gon told Kurapika to which he quietly passed a bag of snacks to Gon, while he had his eyes fixed on the tablet screen. Gon happily took the packet off him, opened it and started sharing it out before he ate his own share.

"Be quiet you two, this isn't a school trip," Leorio scolded the two kids to keep their voices down, noticing that they were getting a couple of odd looks from other passengers. As Killua was unfairly disqualified, Gon didn't want to start using his Hunter license just yet. The quartet decided to buy the economy seat tickets online instead of just getting free first class tickets with their licenses. While the others were talking really loudly, Kurapika was quietly typing away on his tablet. Everyone who passed the Hunter exam was given a small tablet with a really strong network connection along with their Hunter license. The tablet could be used anywhere, had a very long battery life and was conveniently small in size; perfect for a Hunter to use whilst travelling.

"What are you doing?" Leorio asked him, seeing how he wasn't the slightest irritated by them talking loud enough for the other passengers to hear.

"I'm looking more into the Zoldyck family," he answered while reading a big chunk of text. "They seem to be quite famous although no one has seen them before. Even their estate is a tourist attraction."

"At least we won't have any trouble getting there," Himeko commented, thinking how seemingly easy it was for Kurapika to just look up the Zoldyck estate and find it in a short amount of time. There were articles after articles on these notorious assassins, which was indeed very surprising.

"Kurapika, can you try using your license to find out about my dad?" Gon asked, seeing how much he manage to find on just Killua's family.

Hearing this, Kurapika opened a new tab, "Sure, what's his name?"

"Ging," Gon answered, "Ging Freeces!" With a Hunter's license, there should be no problem to find out information about other Hunters, but for some reason Ging's profile was blocked. Kurapika tried refreshing the site, but it was no use at all.

"I can't access the information," Kurapika informed them as he tried accessing the page a couple more times before giving up. For some reason any information about Ging and his whereabouts were off limits to ordinary Hunters. They were starting to doubt that anyone, not even veteran Hunters could access the page.

"Wow Gon, your dad must be someone really important," Leorio said in astonishment, to which Gon just grinned. "That reminds me, I feel like I was kept in the shade about Kou."

"Kept in the shade?" Gon asked in confusion. Since Gon was unconscious during the Himeko's fight with Bodoro, he didn't hear Kurapika's conversation with Killua. He had no clue why Himeko was so abnormally strong for someone her build, he just assumed that she trained a lot in the past to become this strong just like Netero suggested.

"Yeah, it seems like everyone knows something that I don't know," Leorio said in a frustrated voice. It bugged him when everyone around him were talking about something he had no clue about. "She told Kurapika and even Killua knew. Kou is closer to us than she is with Killua, it's making me wonder why she's coming along in the first place when those two are like cat and mouse."

"I have a heart too you know," she raised a brow at his rude tone, "besides, I promised to repay him for the information he gave me, and it hurts my pride if I break a promise like that."

"Kou, what do Kurapika and Killua know that Leorio and I don't know?"

"I guess it won't hurt telling you now," Himeko shrugged indifferently. "I was going to tell you sooner or later, so let's just use it as a time pass until we get to Killua's place!"

"You can start telling us about your powers!" Gon pointed out. "You were really strong back then, how long did you train?"

"I never actually trained Gon." Himeko started telling the two everything she had told Killua and Kurapika. From her clan's massacre, to her being sold into a research lab by human traffickers, she didn't miss out one, single detail of her story. However the more she told them about herself, the more unbelievable the story started heading. First of all the news that she was from a noble clan was more than enough to shock Leorio, especially coming from someone like Himeko who didn't display any lady-like traits. But following the story about her families murder, and an illegal human research project the story just got a whole lot crazier.

"You were sold into a research lab?" Leorio asked in shock, to which Himeko could only nod silently. She didn't want to show it, but the fact that she had to hold down one of her shaking hands with the other showed the others how frightening the experience must have been for her. She was a rational thinker, she liked to think more than fight and that alone was one of the reasons she managed to live so long. If she just ran into fights without thinking first, she wouldn't be alive right now. Other than that, they knew for a fact that although she always tried to put up a tough exterior, she was still only a child.

"Hundreds of children were sold to a team of researchers to try out a new drug," she began to explain. Losing your family all in one night was one thing, but having all kinds of nasty drugs tested on you was something they couldn't even begin to imagine.

"Drug?" Leorio questioned, not liking where this was heading towards. Putting two and two together, he had already figured out that this drug she was talking about must've resulted in her inhumane strength, but because of the medical knowledge he had, he knew that something like would come with a heavy price. Nonetheless, he wanted to keep listening to her, and this drug she was given.

"Yeah, I believe it was called B-2405," she answered, recalling the exact name of something she came across years ago. Just thinking about injections made her feel uneasy. "I'm not sure what it stands for, but it's supposed to alter your DNA and make you stronger, or at least that's what I think."

"B-2405, huh? I think I've heard of it before," Leorio told her. "I thought it was just a rumour, but I heard about an experiment that went horribly wrong, it killed most of the test subject. The drug was simply too strong even though it was given to them in very small dosages. The side effects were too overwhelming for most of them too handle. But I thought it was a rumour, I didn't think it would be true." Leorio's wide knowledge on this subject impressed Kurapika, Himeko and Gon. He said he wanted to become a doctor, and it seemed like he was well informed when it came to the medical field. He was very serious about his career path after all, so it was no surprise at all. Something he believe to be a simple myth turned out to be true, and although he didn't want to imagine what such a drug could do to a body, he couldn't help but be curious. Himeko said the drug was supposed to enhance your strength by tenfolds after altering your DNA. In the medical field, such techniques were too advanced so he was interested in how this drug actually worked and how it was made in the first place. That aside, ethical issues were enough reason for such experiments to be banned by the government, but then again this was an underground research facility.

"You're right, less than one hundred children actually survived the side effects," Himeko stated, "I just happen to be one of them."

"What would happen to them afterwards?" Gon asked not seeing the point in this horrible experiment. If more children died than actually survive, it meant that this experiment failed very badly, but at the same time after seeing the extends of Himeko's abilities he couldn't deny the fact that it did work on her for some odd reason. It could just be dependant on the individual's genetic material, and everyone who survived, including Himeko had some sort of superior gene compared to the others that made them live through the experience. Of course Gon wasn't able to comprehend that much, only Leorio and Kurapika were able to come up with a logical explanation, but that didn't change Gon's curiosity.

"They would be trained until they were strong enough to be sold into a wealthy family as bodyguards," she continued to explain. "Just a handful of us would be more than enough to serve the mafia."

"The Royal Beasts," Kurapika added, "I don't know much about them, but they are elite bodyguards that work for the wealthy in the background."

"Hey Kurapika, try finding information on the Hunter website," Leorio suggested. Hearing this, Kurapika didn't hesitate to type '_Royal Beasts'_ into the search box. Surprisingly, there were a few matches of which some where not even related to what they were trying to find. However, hidden in a list of articles was one that stood out.

_'Research facility burnt down.' _Himeko immediately pointed at that specific article as it stood out to her the most. Not just that, the article was from three and a half years ago, so it matched the date she was able to escape. It talked about an isolated research laboratory that was abandoned for decades. With no civilisation around for hundreds of kilometres, no one paid attention to the facility and this was most likely the reason why. The facility was found in ashes, and there were quite a lot of human fragments discovered at the site. Since Kurapika was using a site for Hunters, he could easily access a list of victims that were identified in the piles of ashes. Most of them were unfamiliar to her, especially since back then her own well being mattered the most to her. However, she spotted one boy who seemed oddly familiar. She recognised that youthful, freckled face and wavy, reddish-brown hair. Akira Nakae; a name she completely forgot about, but once she was reminded of it she started to feel sick in the stomach. She couldn't remember why, but there was this feeling of guilt that crept up her spine seeing his name in the list of deceased. Maybe it was the fact that she recalled seeing him and that he didn't managed to escape like she did.

That was all there was though, there was no information about the drug, any known antidotes or specialists and most importantly, no one knew who created the drug and why. "It would have been too good to be true!" Himeko sighed in disappointment.

"Seems like the experiment is still kept very secretive and confidential that even Hunters can't access the information," Kurapika concluded.

"Have you experienced any side effects yet, Kou?" Leorio continued to ask her questions he just couldn't keep to himself. After all, he wanted to know the dangers of this superhuman drug.

"I don't really like using my strength to fight, so I haven't experienced and after effects," she started off, "but when we were given the dosages, light side effects included nausea, high fevers, vomiting, headaches and dizzy spells, so nothing serious. However, as they increased the dosages, these became a lot worse and there were a lot more serious complications," she continued to explain and then began listing all the side effects she had seen in other test subjects. "Heartburn, coughing up blood, chronic muscle pain and abnormal heart rhythms were present in most. A lot of children died of heart complications and strokes, but most children killed each other."

"Killed each other?" The three listeners were in shock.

"For some reason a lot of the children just lost control. They weren't themselves anymore; it's as if their DNA was completely altered. They became blood thirsty beasts."

"That's awful!" Gon exclaimed in horror, imagining that Himeko could have ended up that way too.

"I was able to escape along with some of the other children, however I don't know where the other children are right now or what they might be doing." Himeko said. Putting her aside, the other children who were stuck with her would have had a different fate if they weren't sold into research. They'd be in school, most of them would have become geniuses while others would have skipped class. They would have been like ordinary children, so a couple of needles was more than enough to change that. For her on the other hand, not much would have changed. Sure, she wouldn't have been as strong as she was right now, but thinking about it for a moment, she would have still had the same goal; to find the people who turned her own household into a graveside. She wouldn't have dared to go anywhere near the Hunter exam, but that wouldn't have stopped her from trying to find a different way to catch the culprits.

"If a lot of higher ups are being quiet about this, then there is a chance that the research is still going on to create even stronger super humans," Leorio informed them. He had a point there. "If they have a lot of supporters, no matter how messed up the research is and no matter how unethical it might be, it would still be going on. They probably have a lot of wealthy people backing them up with their money, so all the government can do is keep quiet and prevent the information from being leaked out to the public. If it did leak, it would cause an uproar!"

"That is indeed true," Kurapika agreed with him, "although the government likes to look like a friend to the public, it doesn't change the fact that a lot of dirty work happens behind the scenes."

"Do all wealthy people have those bodyguards?" Gon asked in slight confusion, "I mean Kou is also from a wealthy background, but she didn't have them."

"This is a really touchy and controversial topic, so not everyone would even dare to support unethical research. It's most likely underground bosses and the mafia supporting and investing into these guards," Kurapika continued to explain. "In other words, this research should be illegal and banned for that matter, but the government can't do much about it other than staying quiet about it."

Although he wasn't exactly satisfied with the answers he got, he still had to put up with those. Kurapika and Leorio were just messengers, they told him everything they could conclude from whatever Himeko had told them so he couldn't attack them. Changing humans against their will and then selling them off into a stranger's household like some sort of guard dog was one of the cruelest things he had ever heard of. But since Himeko still looked slightly agitated from the conversation, Gon decided to drop it there. After finishing the conversation on Himeko, Kurapika once again typed away on his tablet.

"What are you looking at Kurapika?" Gon asked.

Kurapika momentarily stopped typing to look at him before answering, "The date for the annual Yorkshin City auction."

"Why, is there something you want to buy?" Leorio asked.

"No, but _they_ will definitely go to steal," he answered, remembering what Hisoka had told him after their battle, "_They_ will be there!"

"By _they_, do you mean the Phantom Troupe?" Himeko asked to which Kurapika nodded.

"After the match, I met up with Hisoka who told me that they'll be there," he explained, and that was when Leorio remembered Kurapika excusing himself to go to the toilet. Kurapika did take quite long, so Leorio assumed he got lost looking around the large building, but it turned out that he was talking with Hisoka.

"Hisoka?" Leorio asked in disbelief, "You actually trust that bastard?"

"I think Hisoka might be telling the truth," Himeko confessed, "He even told me about seeing my brother a couple years ago," she told them about her own encounter with Hisoka just a while ago, "Hisoka is looking for entertainment through us. He definitely wants to see Kurapika go against the Phantom Troupe and watch from a distance, but you should definitely think twice about it Kurapika. Leorio is right, we are talking about Hisoka here."

"No, I decided that I will go no matter what," he interjected before they could talk him out of it further, "I've been waiting for this chance, and I won't let it slip away." Kurapika was more determined than ever, but looking at him like this, the other three could only worry. He may be consciously starting to dig his own grave and not be able to get out of it once it's too late.

"What are you planning to do, Leorio?" Himeko asked, trying to change the subject. "You got your license after all!"

"Me?" He asked, before he got the point after looking at Kurapika's darkened expression, "I will apply for Medical school. Now that I have a Hunter license, I don't have to worry about the cost anymore. I just have to study for the test." Hearing how determined Leorio was, the mood amongst the four finally brightened up again after all the serious talks. They were all fixed on their own goals. Gon was still going after his father, Himeko needed to find her brother, and she knew the first place to look was the residence of the Inoue side clan. Leorio has his license, so all he had to do was burry his nose into books and start studying, while Kurapika had to find a way to take part in the underground auctions that were going to take place in September. Right now however, they all had the same goal in mind; they had to find and bring back Killua.

The crew arrived at the Republic of Padokia and took a tour bus to Kukoroo mountain. Luckily for them, there were tour buses going to Killua's estate. Being friends with someone from an infamously famous family sure had its advantages. All the Zoldycks needed now was a little gift shop in front of their estate that sold t-shirts and keychains with the phrase _'I heart Zoldycks'_ on it. The bus stopped at a large stone wall, and the tour guide got out of the bus followed by all the tourists. She started going over a brief history of the Zoldycks, and how no one has ever seen them. Apparently even a single photograph of them could sell for millions, making Leorio wonder why no one had ever told him about it before. But then again it raised the question; if a mere picture of them was worth millions, how much would their heads be worth?

While she was busy talking, two men marched towards the stone wall and a small wooden door by it. Judging by their expressions, they weren't there for a friendly visit, and they definitely weren't going to be satisfied with a Zoldyck t-shirt either. They meant business. "How do you know these infamous assassins even exist if you haven't seen one before?"

_"Touché!"_ Himeko thought. After all, no matter how dumb the men looked, he did have a very smart point. But then again, she's seen, touched and even smelled Killua, so he did exist._ "Killua was running around all over the place so plenty of people should've have seen him!"_

"We'll put an end to this urban legend," the other man declared, before they both marched towards a little hut in front of the stone wall. No kids, that was not a gift shop, it was a stake out for the watchman, who turned out to be an ordinary old man. The old man was trying the stop the two from entering, but all they did was snatch the keys off him and push him to the ground before confidently storming in through the small, wooden door.

"Jeez, now I'm going to get shouted at for feeding Mike at odd hours," the old man sighed. A couple of moments later, screams were heard followed by complete silence. The rest of the tourists watched intensely and were shocked when a huge hand dropped off two sets of human bones through the small wooden door. Everyone ran back inside the bus and headed back down the mountain except for the four Hunters who remained to bring their friend back.

Once the tour bus was finally gone, the old man got out a broom stick and started cleaning out the mess Mike made. Seeing this, Gon used the opportunity to approach him, "Excuse me, do you work here?" he asked the old man.

He was surprised to see that people still remained behind even after all that fiasco, "Yes," he answered, closely analysing the strangers. He remembered seeing these four in the crowd, so he was very sure that they would have left Kukuroo mountain with the rest of the tourists, but seeing how they stayed behind only interested him further, "and who might you all be?"

"We are friends of Killua," Kurapika told him.

"Young Killua's friends?" he questioned in disbelief, "That's quite the rare occasion, he has never brought back any friends."

"With his brother acting the way he does, I wouldn't be too surprised either," Himeko pointed out, "That's besides the point, we were wondering whether we could see him."

He looked at the four strangers who claimed to be Killua's friends once again, and for some odd reason just the determined looks on their faces was enough to convince him. However, knowing how strict the Zoldyck household was, he tried to think of a way for them to get inside without getting eaten by Mike. With just one absurd idea in his mind, he invited the four into his little hut and informed them that he'd try and phone the butler's residence. He picked up the phone sitting on his desk before dialling the numbers, and then waited for someone to pick up.

"This is Zeboro speaking," he answered the phone as soon as someone picked up on the other side. "I have four of Master Killua's friends here who want to see him." Following this, Zeboro was just quietly agreeing to whatever the person on the other line said. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you," he said before putting down the phone. Gon and the others saw the disappointed look on his face, meaning the phone call was unsuccessful. "I'm really sorry, but I couldn't get permission from the head butler."

"I want to try," Gon immediately protested, not wanting to take no for an answer. Zeboro couldn't help but sigh before dialling the number and handing the phone over to Gon. After two rings, someone picked up on the other line.

"Hello, you've reached the butler's residence," an unfriendly, and deep voice answered. The voice was unemotional, almost robotic even.

"I'm Killua's friend," Gon didn't hesitate to answer, "I want to see Killua."

"I'm sorry, but the young master can't see anyone right now. Go back home." After he turned Gon down, he cut the call on him, leaving Gon frustrated. However, Gon didn't want to give up there and dialled the number once more, only to hear the same person pick up.

"Hello, you've reached the butler's residence," the voice answered in the same, monotonous voice.

"I won't leave until I see Killua!" Gon exclaimed, startling everyone else with his loud voice before slamming the phone receiver back down. He took in a couple of breaths trying to calm himself down. Gon only ended up getting frustrated himself, and seeing him so angry was quite a rare sight for everyone.

"Calm down Gon, taking out your anger on the phone won't solve anything," Leorio calmed him down, "Just try again one more time."

"That won't do anything," Himeko pointed out, "We have to remember who Killua really is. He isn't a kid who lives a couple of blocks away from us, he is the heir to an assassination business," she explained, "Assassin or not, it still doesn't change the fact that his parents and butlers wouldn't want him to interact with normal people like us. You can go to the Inoue clan right now and claim to know their heir, and they would give you the exact same answer."

"Kou has a good point," Kurapika couldn't help but agree with her line of thinking. Maybe it was because she was in a similar position when she was younger, but since he himself couldn't interact with outsiders either while in the Kurta clan, he understood where she was coming from. Asking the butlers, the watchmen, Killua's mother or father won't be any use. Their answer will aways be the same.

"That doesn't matter, we'll just go inside and rescue him!" Gon said stubbornly, making the others sigh. If Gon wanted to do something, he wouldn't take no from anyone, and right now he wouldn't take no from the head of the Zoldycks either.

"I can't let you do that, I can't feed young Master Killua's friends to Mike," Zeboro refused to let them inside. Gon however didn't give up, he did not want to use the Testing Gates since he was against the whole idea of getting tested to see your friends. He was fixed on passing through the wooden door until Zeboro took them inside and decided to show them Mike. Mike was not an ordinary dog, you could say he was reduced to a mere machine. He kills any intruders and Zeboro was merely in charge of cleaning after Mike's mess. Mike's empty, black eyes scared everyone, especially Gon. Unlike Kurapika, Leorio and Himeko, he was someone who could easily get along with any animal, but Mike was different. Mike only lived to kill anyone who wasn't allowed on the premises, there was no other motive in his eyes.

"I told you that going through that door was no option," Zeboro said. "The only way to get through into the premises is through the Testing Gates." Zeboro started explaining the principles of the Testing Gates. They were simply there to test whether you were worthy enough to step into the Zoldyck estate. The smallest gate alone weighed two tons ,and they only got heavier as they got bigger.

"Gon, Kou, stay back. Kurapika and I will try," Leorio said before stepping forward. Gon's injuries were still not completely healed, so he was told to stay back. Why he told Himeko to stand back, she was starting to wonder herself. After all, she was physically the strongest out of all four of them. The two tried to force their way through and open the two ton gate with as much force as they could used, but with little success. The gates didn't move an inch despite their struggles.

"Try pulling!" Himeko suggested and this time, both Leorio and Kurapika tried pulling the gates towards them, but with not much luck either. "Push it up!" No matter what they tried, the gates didn't move an inch from their original position and they started to wonder whether you could actually open the gates. "Let me try!" The pair stepped back and let Himeko try to open it. She took a deep breath before pushing with all her force but surprisingly, even for her the gate wouldn't move an inch.

"Does this gate even open?" Leorio asked Zeboro, but Zeboro just decided to demonstrate to prove that the gates did open.

"I'm a little out of shape," He said while everyone looked at him with awe. The first gate actually opened when he pushed with all his strength. "Master Killua opened the third gate when he came back."

"Third gate?!" Gon asked in surprise, "That would be twelve tons!"

"Gon, it's actually sixteen tons," Himeko and Kurapika could only correct him while sighing at Gon's poor math skills. _"Killua must be really strong, I can't even open the first gate,"_ Himeko thought before she looked at the gate once again. For some reason, the thought of Killua being able to handle twelve tons with ease while she couldn't even handle two hurt her pride a little. Even with the effects of an artificial stimulant she was much weaker than him, and it wasn't too long before she asked Zeboro whether she could try again. Zeboro had nothing against the idea, if she was able to open the gates then they could see Killua a little sooner. She walked up to the gate and once again started pushing with all her force, but nothing changed.

"Strength isn't the only thing this gate tests," Zeboro informed them, "It's also testing your ability to control your strength." The old man was speaking wise words that had a lot of truth to them. Even after being given this enormous strength, Himeko didn't train to use it as she wished. She had no time and very little interest to do so anyway. In her opinion, she was stronger than the average man which was more than enough for her, so there was no point in training further, or that was what she once thought. "It seems like you are quite strong, but your abilities to control that strength are lacking. No matter how strong you are, if you can't master your own strength, it could be the death of you."

"I want to try again, just once more!" She stood in front of the gate with a lot more determination, but this time she tried not to just use brute force like she did previously. Zeboro noticed that and watched intently to see whether she could actually open the gate this time. Gon, Kurapika and Leorio also watched, hoping that she could at least move the doors one millimetre. Himeko gave it one final push before the gate open just a little and then shut again. The force of the gate closing caused her to fall back.

"Look, you did better!" Zeboro smiled at her, helping her back up on her feet. "I will train you all to open the gate properly. It usually takes months to do, but I think a couple of weeks is will do for you all."

Zeboro opened the gate again and let everyone through. Gon's eyes were fixed on Mike, who was quietly sitting by a couple of trees staring at them with his empty, soulless eyes. They headed towards a little house that was in the middle of the forest. Zeboro opened the door for them and the interior seemed pretty cozy and simple. Looking around, they could get used to this. Simple furniture and a warm fireplace, what better way to spend the cold winter days than to sit there with a cup of hot cocoa?

As they stepped in and removed their shoes, they were all given a set of slippers to wear around the house. Not expecting much, they slipped into the slippers but tripped and fell flat on their faces when then tried to walk in them. They didn't even manage to make it a metre past the doormat, wondering why they fell in the first place.

"What the hell is this?" Leorio shouted angrily, trying to get back up and failing miserably with the slippers weighing him down.

"Slippers, they weigh twenty kilos each," Zeboro smiled at them innocently, as if any common household would hand their guests twenty kg slippers. He noticed them struggling, and although he too wore the slippers he was comfortably moving to the kitchen to start brewing the visitors a cup of hot tea. He knew that they'd eventually get used to the weight, whether it was going to take hours, days or even weeks, so he didn't bother to help them back up on their feet.

Himeko was the first one to get back up. Having her lightweight running shoes traded for shoes that weighed more than three quarters of her own weight took a while to get used to, but at least she managed a lot better than everyone else. One step at a time, she tried to help her friends back up on her feet before dragging herself inside to help Zeboro.

"Oi brat, don't walk around so casually with those twenty kilo slippers on. We understand that you're a superhuman, but don't rub it in!" Leorio yelled at Himeko, seeing how she was nearly in the kitchen area while he was still lingering around by the front door.

"Training has begun!" Zeboro announced as he handed Himeko the heavy tea set she nearly dropped. He decided to train Himeko, Kurapika and Leorio for the next one and a half weeks, while Gon was told to rest. But determined to rescue his friend, Gon snuck out every night to train himself. Not just for Killua, but the fact that Hisoka and Hanzo helped him pass the exam irritated him too. Injuries aside, he had to get stronger and if no one let him do it during daytime, so he just had to do it during the night while everyone else was supposed to be asleep. Although Himeko, Kurapika and Leorio noticed a missing Gon every night, they decided to keep their mouths closed and watched him every now and then so he wouldn't overexert himself.

_"It's a man's thing."_ Himeko rolled her eyes remembering Killua's words whenever she saw Gon's empty bed at night. In her opinion it wasn't their pride they wanted to protect, it was just their stubbornness that refused to let them give up. But then again, that was her opinion and she was a girl, so maybe there was something that she could only understand if she were a boy. She didn't really care whether the boys agreed with her, but her theory made a lot of sense the more she thought about it. Gon was stubborn, Killua was stubborn, Leorio was stubborn, heck, even Kurapika was stubborn as hell. That was more than enough evidence she needed to prove her point. There was no such thing as a man's thing because women had pride in the things they did too. To her it seemed like they were using that phrase to continue being stubborn, and to stop her from talking them out of something reckless, _"Man's thing my ass, just make sure none of you actually get hurt out there!"_

Although Zeboro trained all three of them, he split them up into two groups. He wanted Kurapika and Leorio to enhance their strength and become stronger, while Himeko had to learn how to control her strength and use it effectively. Training varied, but they mostly just did a week and a half's worth of house chores with heavy cleaning equipment. Despite all that, they all wore the fifty kilogram suits at all times and the suits were then increased to one hundred kilograms. Zeboro only allowed them to take the suits off when they went to bed.

Ten days later, it was finally time to see the results of the intensive training, or household chores even. The crew along with Zeboro assembled in front of the testing gate. They took their suits off and dropped them on the floor, causing the ground beneath them to shake a due to the excessive weight. Somehow, they just felt a lot more refreshed when they took their suits off, almost as if they were a completely different people, much stronger people for that matter. One by one, they tried to open the gates. Gon and Kurapika were able to open the first gate while Leorio and Himeko managed to open the second gate and they were now worthy to step on the Zoldyck's ground.

Zeboro then pointed towards the mountain where they could find the Zoldyck's mansion, and after thanking Zeboro, they left to bring back Killua. They followed a path Zeboro instructed them to take that would eventually lead to the mansion, and came across a young girl who stood in their way.

"I won't let you go past this line," she declared, drawing across the path. She was the butler apprentice, Canary; the girl that took out a Blacklist Hunter along with his men when she first joined. A mere butler apprentice, and the staff working for the Zoldycks were on a completely different level than her.

Despite her warning, Gon stepped forward and when he took a step past the line, he was beat up and thrown back, away from the line again. Gon got up and tried again, only to be beat up again. Gon spent hours trying again and again but would only get beaten up.

"Why aren't you stopping him, isn't he your friend?" She shouted at Himeko, Kurapika and Leorio who just watched Gon quietly. They did not answer, knowing Gon almost too well, they knew that their words weren't going to stop him. Not only that, if Gon wasn't trying to make an effort to get past the line, they would.

"I won't give up until I see Killua!" Gon stated, as he walked towards her again and stepped over the line. Canary was taken back by Gon's determination, remembering the time when Killua asked her to befriend him. Being under constant surveillance, she had to turn his offer down but looking back now, she had always wanted to befriend him. The fact that Killua had actually found a caring friend, or friends for that matter, who made it this far to help him, made her the slightest bit happy. She was conflicted by the duty to obey the Zoldycks, but she actually just wanted to help Killua reunite with his friends. She was touched by their actions. "Aren't you going to hit me? I stepped over the line," Gon reminded her.

Canary took a couple steps back, "Please save the young Master!" She pleaded before she was knocked out. Leorio was the first person to run towards her, checking whether she was alright. While Leorio, Himeko and Kurapika were caught up in the commotion, Gon looked around to see where the shot came from and saw a pale woman with a sun umbrella and wearing a vintage style, purple dress along with a young boy with short black hair in a black kimono.

"How dare you, you make it seem like we treat Kil badly!" The lady screamed at Canary, in an ear piercing, high pitched voice.

"You…" Gon was angered by her actions, and it didn't take long for them to realise that she must have been one of Killua's relatives, remembering that his older brother called him by the same, ironic nickname.

"I'm sorry for the late introduction, I'm Killua's mother and this is Kalluto," Kikiyo introduced herself, "I've got a message from Kil. He said 'thank you for coming, but I can't see you all right now.'"

Gon wasn't satisfied with the message from Killua, but at the same time that was the only thing they've heard from him in weeks, "Tell Killua that we will stay here for a few more days before leaving!" Gon replied to her message from Killua.

"I will do," she said, turning back around to head back to their mansion. Once Kikiyo left, her youngest child Kalluto was still standing there, staring daggers at Gon. Gon started wondering why he was doing that seeing how he dud nothing to anger him, but they both snapped out of it when they heard Kikiyo's loud voice again. "Kalluto, come back here immediately!"

"Yes, mother," Kalluto mumbled back before following her mother back into the voice. After they left, Leorio decided to tell them Canary's condition after bandaging her, "It's nothing serious, she is just unconscious," he informed them. Seeing how Canary was just trying to recover from the shock, Gon, Kurapika and Himeko were finally relieved.

Back at the Zoldyck mansion, Milluki was still torturing Killua. Although he could easily break free, he willingly acted along these past days to give his older brother some satisfaction, "How dare you hurt mother an I and run away from home?" He asked, continuously whipping Killua to try and teach him a lesson.

Killua opened his eyes and yawned, "You are still not done?" he questioned before he mockingly apologised for hurting him before running away, "I'm really sorry Milluki-nii, I swear I won't do it again." Knowing that he was just playing around, Milluki was just angered even further. Before he could continue giving Killua another beating, their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a phone call from their mother Kikiyo. She informed Milluki that Killua's friends were near the butler's office, only surprising him. Killua who had sharp ears was able to hear what his mother was saying on the other line, and since it was news about Gon and the others, he couldn't help but feel somewhat happy knowing that they came all this way just for him.

Milluki just snickered at the thought of four mere humans having the guts to make it this far into their estate, "You should have just forced them to leave when you had the chance to," he laughed in amusement, after hearing the full story from his mother. However, his laughter was cut short after he heard the sound of iron chains breaking echoing through the basement. He looked at his younger brother, only to see that amused, mischievous face being replaced by a dead serious, threatening look.

"If you touch any of them, I will kill you!" Killua threatened Milluki after pulling off one of his iron chains. Milluki knew that his brother had zero respect for him, but he also knew that Killua would only threaten him if he stepped over the line. Milluki gulped and cut the conversation short. After putting down the phone, Killua's grandfather Zeno entered the room and told Killua he was free to go, to which Milluki threw a fit for spoiling Killua. Killua easily broke free and mocked Milluki for not being sorry about stabbing him before running away. Zeno informed Killua that his father wanted to see him before he made his way out. Once Killua left the cell, Milluki continued to throw a fit about everyone spoiling Killua to which Zeno just replied by telling Milluki that Killua is special. Milluki agreed, admitting that Killua was indeed talented, a lot more talented than even Illumi, but he went on to criticise his weak mentality and mocked his wish to make friends.

During this time, Canary woke up and volunteered to take Gon to the butler's office where they could contact the Zoldyck family directly via phone. Gon asked whether it wouldn't trouble her but she just said it won't. She proceeded to take them to the butler's office. As Gon and the others were going to the butler's office to contact the Zoldycks, Killua headed to his father's room. His father Silva greeted him and told him to come inside and take a seat next to him. Killua felt a little uneasy having a father-son conversation, knowing that the whole family knew about him running away and befriending Gon. He thought his father was going to scold him for disrespecting his mother and going off making friends with strangers, but instead Silva asked him to tell him about his friends and the Hunter exam. Killua quickly became more comfortable to talk about his friends and the events of the exam. They both had a couple of laughs over the ease of the Hunter exam and Gon's naivety but Killua then decided to ask Silva something.

"Dad, do you remember telling us about the Inoue clan?" He cautiously asked his father.

"Yes, I did," he answered, wondering why his son was bringing this up all of the sudden, "what of it?"

Killua didn't know whether he could trust his father or not. After all, he didn't know what kind of relationship he had with the Inoue clan. Silva just didn't want his sons to accept any requests involving the Inoue clan, and he himself didn't accept any either. However, that wasn't enough for him to be sure that they weren't on bad terms with each other. Silva also once told Killua and his brothers to stay away from the Phantom Troupe, but that was because they were exceptionally strong and even he had trouble getting rid of them, and not because he was on good terms with them. He could tell him about Himeko and her brother still being alive, but that might be a wrong move to make. She was a friend of Gon, and if anything were to happen to her Gon would approach the Zoldycks and risk getting killed, especially since Illumi still had an eye out for him.

Seeing how his son just stopped his story midway, Silva figured that he knew more but Killua didn't trust him enough to continue. "I've known their Head for quite a long time. We weren't exactly what you could call friends, but we weren't exactly strangers either. You could say that we looked out for each other in one way or the other," Silva started to explain. "He was quite an eccentric fellow which I liked, but he was quite secretive too. I have been to his estate once before you were born, but I was only able to meet his oldest son who was going to be the next heir. His son was just a few years younger than Illumi, but he was an exceptional child just like you."

Killua knew that Silva wasn't the kind of guy who would go around and make friends with anyone this easily. His grandfather Zeno was more laid back, and Killua would expect him to make a few acquaintances outside their clan, so this conversation made Killua look at his father in a new light. He knew that Silva and the Inoue head were fond of each other for a reason, and he did not want to know the reason as he may regret having asked.

"Why are you asking?" Silva asked, knowing that his son must have come across some kind of information on the clan while he was at the Hunter exam. "Did you perhaps meet someone from the Inoue clan?"

"The youngest child of the Head is still alive and the oldest might also be alive," he tried to keep his answer as vague as possible.

"So, Hachirou's children are still alive? That bastard didn't even tell me he had another child." He then looked at Killua who was quietly staring at the floor. He knew that Killua knew more but decided not to ask, so instead, he decided to change the subject. "Do you want to see your friends one more time?" Killua looked up, surprised and startled by his father's offer. "You don't have to be scared. I realised that you and I are different after you ran away and I can't raise you the way I was raised. If you want to see your friends, I'll allow you as long as you promise me to never betray them."

Killua happily promised his father that he would never betray Gon and with that, he left the room. He came across Kikiyo who tried to convince Killua by telling him that his friends had already left, but Killua shot her a glare before moving past her. He went to the butler's office where Gotoh told him that his friends were on their way and Killua ordered him to inform him immediately when they arrive.

Once Gon and the rest have reached the butler's office along with Canary they met Gotoh, the head butler. He had told them that Killua was on his way and offered to play a game while waiting for Killua's arrival. They decided to play a game of coin tossing where Gon, Himeko, Kurapika and Leorio had to guess which hand the coin landed in. The first few rounds were pretty easy as they managed to guess everything correctly. However, Gotoh decided to make things more serious. If someone gave the wrong answer, they were disqualified and if they all failed, they wouldn't be able to see Killua again. Also, they were given a three second time limit and if they didn't answer in the given time, Canary's life was at stake.

The game of coin tossing got a lot harder than what could be called the practice rounds. Leorio gave the wrong answer at one point, followed by Himeko in the next round and then Kurapika in the following, leaving only Gon behind. Gon requested for a knife to make a cut on his swollen eye and reduce the swelling, which improved his vision before Gotoh continued. He was able to guess correctly for the next few rounds and the game ended with Gotoh and the rest of the butlers giving them a round of applause and apologising for making the threat as it was only meant to be a joke.

"What a tasteless joke." Himeko commented only loud enough for Kurapika and Leorio to hear, to which the two nodded in agreement.

Not too soon after, Killua entered the room and a smile grew on his face as he saw Gon and the others. "Gon!" He exclaimed cheerfully, before looking at the others, "And um…. Kurapika, Reorio and you!"

"What's with the long pause?" Kurapika commented.

"It's Leorio, not Reorio!" Leorio corrected him angrily.

"This 'you' has a name!" Himeko pointed out.

Killua ignored the complaining trio and laughed at the bruises on Gon's face, while Gon pointed out how Killua's face was no better. Some things and people never change, after going through so much during the past couple of days the pair acted as if nothing happened. In a way Himeko couldn't help but envy their mindset. Although she was happy to see Killua again, she still couldn't forget the fact that the butlers just threatened to kill them over a loss in a coin flipping game. It sounded too ridiculous to be true, which made her think about it even more and Kurapika and Leorio shared the exact same thoughts as her.

After their reunion, they eventually decided to leave after bidding Canary and the other butlers goodbye, and took the train back. Whilst on the train, Gon told Killua about everything that happened while they were at the Zoldyck estate, and knowing that this was his house he was talking about, Killua wasn't the slightest bit surprised. In fact, the coin tossing game Gotoh made them play was all too familiar to him. During their conversation Kurapika asked Gon why he didn't use his Hunter license to get the train tickets. Gon explained that a couple of people helped him pass the Hunter exam, including Hisoka who just handed him the badge during the fourth phase. He told them that he did not want to be indebted to him, and will only start using his license after punching Hisoka and returning his badge.

"Do you even know where Hisoka is going to be?" Killua asked Gon, and this was honestly the first time Gon actually started thinking about Hisoka's location.

"Nope, not at all!" Gon smiled, not having a clue on Hisoka's whereabouts.

"Then how are you going to fight him?" Killua started yelling at Gon, "You can only fight him if you know where he is!"

"I know where he will be," Kurapika interrupted him, "In September, there will be an auction in Yorkshin city. Hisoka told me that the Phantom Troupe will assemble there, and it's very likely that Hisoka will be there too."

"So, I guess that we'll be there too in September, right Killua?" Gon asked Killua.

Killua just sighed, knowing that there was no other lead to Hisoka's current whereabouts, "I guess it can't be helped."

"What are you all going to do now?" Gon asked, seeing how they all looked ready to depart once they got to the airport.

"I'm going to find a job as a Hunter to get me into the auction before september," Kurapika answered them. "I've looked into a couple of places that hire Hunters as bodyguards, so for now I'll be going there and seeing if they are currently hiring people."

"I'm going to prepare for my entrance exams before entering medical school." Leorio told them, proudly showing off an application form he managed to fill in, "But I guess I don't mind meeting up in Yorkshin city in september if you three are also going to be there, right Kou?"

"Yeah," Himeko nodded in agreement, "If everyone's going to be there then I guess it's a good opportunity for us all to meet up again. Besides, we can help Kurapika and Gon too while we are at it!"

"What will you be doing?" Gon asked her.

"I'm going to try visiting my relatives from the side clan," she answered, before looking at Kurapika. "I'm not sure if they'll be willing to accept me, but I can just give it a try, right?"

"Right!" Kurapika agreed. He was glad that she decided to visit the other clan after he had told her to, "By the way, do you even know where their mansion is?"

But that was when she realised, "Now that you mention it, I don't," she rubbed her neck sheepishly, making all of them look at her with dumbfounded expressions. She was as clueless as Gon when it came to these sorts of things.

"How are you going to find out?" Leorio questioned her, wondering how in earth they were going to figure out where the Inoue clan lived. According to Himeko, they were a lot more secretive than the Zoldycks, so it was going to be much harder to find them. Himeko then got her Hunter tablet out and started looking more into it.

"I'm going to try finding it on the Hunter website. After all, no matter how secretive we are, the Inoue clan does employ Hunters from time to time to run errands for them," she informed them with confidence.

"Errands?" Leorio raised a brow slightly offended by her statement, "Does your clan think we are your servants or something."

Hearing this, she decided to look up and seriously think about Leorio's question, "Now that you mention it, yes, yes we did actually think that!" She answered his question, which only ended up offending everyone even further including herself. "I'm really sorry, I swear I never actually thought of Hunters as errand boys," she tried to clear her own name, "if I did then I wouldn't have become a Hunter myself." Seeing her so flustered, Leorio just patted her back in amusement, admitting that he was only joking about it, and Kurapika and Gon eventually joined in. Killua didn't laugh as he didn't find the joke particularly funny while Himeko was just sitting there in confused. She then turned back to her tablet and typed away before finally finding the location. "Found it!"

"Really?" Gon asked in surprise. For a mansion that was supposedly really hard to find, Himeko managed to find it quite quickly. But then again, that was because she knew some names Inoues who shifted to the side clan, and knowing that the Heads of the clans would usually request for Hunters, she just tried to look for any jobs one of the previous Heads of the clan made. She eventually managed to end up with their address once she dug in even further. "Where is it?"

"It's in the middle of no where!" She sighed looking at the map. Once again, this was something she expected knowing that her own estate was isolated within the woods too. "I would have to walk quite a lot and there is no transport around there."

"How are you going to get there without getting lost?" Killua asked, remembering how long it took her to find her way back on Zevil island. "You suck at directions."

"Well, it's not my fault that we aren't some kind of tourist attraction," she shot right back at him. "Us Inoues like our privacy, we don't want strangers trying to break in and then kill them with an overgrown watchdog."

"How about we just book the tickets for now?" Leorio asked, trying to bring some peace between the pair. Leorio, Kurapika and Himeko booked their tickets online. Kurapika's flight was first followed by Leorio's and Himeko's flight was an hour later. The only ones who didn't book tickets were Gon and Killua who still haven't decided where they wanted to go or what they wanted to do until September.

"I can show you something you can do on your tablet that might help you get there," Kurapika offered now that he knew how hopeless Himeko really was. She didn't really look like she had much experience with technology either, especially after he saw how she was still using an outdated flip phone and how slow she was when typing something into the search engine.

"Really, you'd do that?" Himeko asked, feeling over the moon after seeing how he was coming to her aid.

"Well, if you are as hopeless at direction as Killua claims you are, we can't just let you search a whole island with no transport for a mansion," Despite being slightly offended by his lack of trust in her skills, Himeko was still more than happy when Kurapika offered to help her. After all, they didn't speak much after the conversation they had back on the ship a few weeks ago and she started getting a hunch that Kurapika was purposely trying to avoid her at times. But before she could hand him her tablet, Killua took it off her lap.

"What was that for?" She asked, but Killua didn't answer and just kept typing something while everyone was quietly looking at him. "Hey! I asked you a question!"

"Be quiet," He cut her off before she could complain even more, "I'm just trying to help you!"

"Jeez, if you wanted to play on it you could have asked first!" She continued complaining, but Killua just ignored her and continued setting something up. Himeko eventually stopped complaining and occasionally tried to peek at what she was doing, only for Killua to cover the screen even further so none of them could see what he was doing. "Don't break it!" She warned him, doubting whether he was actually trying to purposely download a computer virus onto her new device. He continued to ignore her and once he was done, he gave her device back.

He pointed at one of the newly installed icons, "Once you get off the plane, press this icon and turn the GPS on. After it's turned on, it will give you the directions to get to the place. I made it foolproof, so not even an idiot like you wouldn't end up walking around the whole island twice."

"Thanks…. I guess." She was slightly taken back by the fact that Killua just helped her out, and although that sudden act of kindness earned him one point in her good books (previously he was at -35 and now he was at -34), she still was slightly creeped out by his change in behaviour. She tried listing all the possibilities of why he was suddenly so nice, reasons ranging from him having hit his head while he was back at the Zoldyck estate to one of his family members having drugged him into acting creepier than usual. In reality, Killua was just grateful that she joined Gon and others to come and get him back. She could have just set out and gone her own way after the Hunter exam, but she chose not to. But she just thought that anyone would do the same thing, and couldn't just let him go back with a psychopathic older brother. "Don't tell me that you actually like me now!"

"Like hell I would," he immediately found himself denying any weird ideas she got. "Just don't get lost, I don't want us to wait in Yorkshin just because you ended up on the other side of the world."

"Doesn't Killua sound like one of those tsunderes?" Leorio pointed out, before starting to mock his tone.

"Shut it, old man!" Killua yelled at him, as he found himself embarrassed. He may have been brought up as a cold hearted assassin, but when he got complimented or when someone thanked him he can't help but get embarrassed and shy away. It was quite strange, especially since his own family must have favoured him as a child, yet he was still not immune to receiving and dealing with compliments.

"Baka, it's not like I wanted to help you," Leorio mocked Killua in a girly tone, and not too soon after, they started arguing as usual.

Once they arrived at the airport, they promised to meet up again in Yorkshin City on the first of September. Kurapika, Leorio, Himeko and Killua exchanged phone numbers before Kurapika and Leorio bid their goodbyes and left first. Himeko's flight was an hour later, so she decided to stay behind for a little and roam around the airport with the boys.

"What are you two going to do anyways?" She asked them, wondering whether they had finally figured something out. "I mean, you two still have time until September."

"I guess you are right," Gon agreed with her, before turning to Killua hoping he would have a clue on what they were going to do next. "Killua, what are we going to do?"

"We are going to train of course!" Killua started scolding him. "Do you think you can lay a finger on Hisoka when you can't even beat Hanzo?" To make things easier for Gon to understand, Killua picked up a stick and drew two faces on the ground with some distance in between. One was meant to be Hisoka and the next one was Hanzo. He extended a line from Hanzo around ten metres, maybe even more than that and marked that point with an x. "Your level is around here!" He shouted from back there.

"That kinda pissed me off!" Gon muttered offended by Killua's honestly. "Well, where are you in terms of strength then, Killua?"

Killua thought a little, before using the stick to point somewhere a couple of meters next to Hanzo. _"I'm so humble!"_ He grinned proudly, seeing how impressed Gon was, clearly not being close to humble.

"Wow, that means you are nearly as strong as Hanzo!" Gon exclaimed in awe, before looking at Himeko. "What about Kou then?"

"Don't worry, I don't want to know!" She simply didn't care about her ranking and she knew she still had a lot to learn, so she'd rather learn at her own rate. After all, she had all the time in the world. Besides, she knew Killua was going to extend the line an extra ten metres and draw and ugly face right at the end of it and call her that. Just as she expected, Killua started running down further, passed Gon's point, hop over the fence and drew an ugly face with demon horns over there before sending her a picture of it from where he was standing. Then he returned, and putting jokes aside he pointed at a spot between Gon and his own level.

"Around here I'm guessing, she's stronger than you Gon, but still a lot weaker than me of course," he told them proudly. Seeing how he put her down like that, Himeko casually walked up to him, kicked him in the shin and walked right back. "Ouch! What was that for?!"

"Just, I felt like doing that!" She shrugged, smirking at the sight of him in pain. "Aren't you meant to be stronger than me? You should have been able to handle such a weak kick with ease!"

"Why you?!"

Gon didn't hesitate to intervene, "That was mean, Kou!" He pointed out, seeing how Killua was genuinely in pain. "Apologise to him."

Himeko turned to Killua and stuck out her tongue, "Sorry!" She said in a mocking tone. Their conversation was shortly interrupted by an announcement, and the trio stopped arguing to pay attention to what was going to be said.

_'Calling passengers for the flight to Kioto.'_

"I guess that's my cue to leave," she told them after hearing the announcement. "Make sure to train real hard before we meet again. You don't want to get left behind in my dust, do you?"

"We'll just see about that," Killua happily accepted her challenge.

Gon nodded in agreement, "You too, I will definitely get stronger!" She picked up her rucksack to start heading back inside, but suddenly remembered something. The two boys watched her roam through her overpacked rucksack to find something. "What's wrong Kou?" Gon asked curiously, but then she smiled in satisfaction after she finally found what she was looking for.

"Before I forget!" She threw something at Killua and he caught it. "It's the payment I promised you." He opened up his hand and found a small box of chocolate that was surprisingly expensive. He didn't really expect her to take him seriously and go through the trouble of buying him chocolate, and even if she did he expected her to buy him something much cheaper. "I wasn't sure what you liked, so I just bought one that appealed to me," she explained after seeing how surprised he was all of the sudden. "Anyways, I'm off."

"Good luck, Kou!" Gon waved as they remained behind and watched her leave.

...

Himeko got off the flight after four hours. She spent four hours sleeping on the plane since she hasn't gotten any proper rest since she started the Hunter exam, but she couldn't help but worry what would happen at the mansion.

After leaving the airport, she turned on the GPS and clicked on the icon Killua told her to click on. It told her to take a taxi to Mount Ataago. According to the information on the tablet, she can take a taxi until she reaches the mountain, but she would have to walk the rest from the mountain. She had enough money for a taxi ride, and took a taxi to the mountain before getting off there. She then looked at the tablet which told her the directions in details. It told her to enter a forest that was right next to the mountain. Thankfully, the directions were quite easy to follow even for someone like her.

After four hours of walking, she finally came across a tall stone wall. She remembered that their mansion also had a tall stone wall surrounding it too and decided to climb over it with caution and then climbed down. This side of the wall looked very different from the side she just came from. The trees were nicely kept, there were fields of flowers that were carefully arranged according to their colours and there was a clean stone path; it reminded her too much of her own estate. She followed the path closely and ended up at another gate after two hours of speed walking with another wall surrounding the place.

_"The mansion should be past here if this place was built after the original!"_ She thought before walking up to the gate and found two guards.

As expected, she was stopped by the pair of guards who were surprised to see a visitor. "Hey you, stop right there!" One of the guards commanded.

Himeko stopped walking, _"Of course, I completely forgot that there would be guards around the place,"_ she thought and looked up at the tall, muscular men.

"Who are you?" The other man started interrogating her, "Do you realise that you are trespassing on private property?"

"I'm Himeko Inoue, the youngest child of the Head of the main Inoue household, Hachirou Inoue." She introduced herself, expecting them to let her inside. However, the guards just blinked a couple of times before they started to laugh.

"Main Inoue branch?" One man laughed, "They died in an accident four years ago."

"Listen kid, just because you have black hair and blue eyes doesn't make you part of the Inoues," The other guard explained, trying to keep a straight and serious face.

"What do mere guards like you know about the Inoue clan anyway?" She asked furiously. Whether she liked her house rules or not, she didn't like the fact that two lazy guards who probably didn't even do their job properly looked down on her. "You are employed by higher ups of the clan, but that's about all you would be told. Don't act as if you know anything about the Inoues, you are just our guards and nothing more. Don't assume you are special for being chosen to guard us."

"Kid, we are going to give you another chance to leave on your own." The guards started growing furious hearing Himeko ridicule them. "If you don't, we will kick you out by force!"

"I'm not leaving because I am the daughter of Hachirou Inoue!" She yelled stubbornly, refusing to move an inch.

"You brat!" One of the guards muttered before he raised his hand, but before he could proceed to his her, he was interrupted when the gate opened from the inside.

"What's all the noise about?" A boy asked, stepping out of the main estate. "Is this really how you treat a guest of the Inoue clan? You're portraying us in a bad light."

The guards quickly got on their knees and lowered their head, "We are extremely sorry, young Master."

"I'm not the one you should be apologising to," he continued to scold them, "Apologise to her!" The guards turned around and bowed a couple of times and quietly returned to their positions on either side of the gate. The boy's gaze turned from the guards to Himeko, whose eyes were solely stuck on him.

_"Hakuryuu onii-sama….."_

* * *

**A/n -** Zoldyck arc done in one chapter. I just summarised most of it since nothing major would have happened even if Himeko was an extra. Off we go to the next OC based arc ;D


	13. Meeting the Side Clan

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 12**

_Meeting the Side clan_

...

_"Hakuryuu nii-sama?" _Hearing a familiar sounding name being said, the boy turned to look at her. Black hair, blue eyes and a tall, slender built; that was how Himeko remembered her brother, but now that she has taken a closer look at him, he had the same features but it wasn't Hakuryuu. It wasn't her brother, it was just another stranger. "Ah, sorry!" She bowed her head as she apologised. "I mistook you for someone else." The boy seemed to be intrigued by her features. She had the same features as everyone else in his clan, but who exactly was she? He had never seen her before, and the fact that she came from outside drew his curiosity. What drew the most attention though were the sapphire earrings she was wearing on her ears.

"Those earrings!" He pointed out, "Who are -"

"Ah, sorry for not introducing myself earlier. I'm Himeko Inoue, daughter of the late Hachirou Inoue. He was the last head of the main Inoue clan," she accidentally cut him off before he could ask her who she was. Knowing that she was meeting someone who is a distant relative of hers after such a long time, she started to feel very anxious to the point that she started stuttering. _"Crap, I didn't let him finish his sentence!"_

"My name is Hakuren Inoue," he introduced himself with a smile before politely bowing his head slightly, "I'm the eldest son of Gorou Inoue, the current head of our Inoue clan."

"I-it's nice to meet you, Hakuren-dono," She bowed back once again. It was a little unlike her character to stutter this much while talking to someone. As an individual Himeko was quite confident, mainly due to the way she was brought up by her mother. _"What the hell am I even saying?"_

"I think Hakuren would do, there's no need to be so formal. After all, we are related in one way or the other."

"Do you really believe me when I say that I'm the daughter of the head of the main clan?"

"Your earrings!" He pointed, "There are only two pairs of them that exist in this world. We have one pair, and the other clan has the second pair. No one apart from people within the clan know this, so the fact that you have a pair must mean you are from the other clan."

"Oh," She started thinking out loud, "so these work like ID cards."

"I beg your pardon?" He was slightly taken back by her sudden, excited outburst.

"Ah, I'm really sorry!" She bowed once again, "I'm actually really nervous right now, so I might talk nonsense without realising it myself!"

"No, it's okay!" He smiled at her honesty. "It's just rare to see someone so energetic around here."

_"So I guess things are the same around here as they were back home."_ She thought, not entirely surprised by it either.

"I'm sorry for keeping you at the front gate for too long, let's go inside." Hakuren led the way inside to the mansion and Himeko followed right behind him. On the way, she saw quite a few people from her clan, more than she was used to at least. There weren't that many people left in the main clan after most of the people moved to the side clan. She was a little surprised to see a lot of people that look like each other, as she wasn't used to it anymore. Whilst walking down the hallway, a lot of eyes were looking her way. Everyone was wondering why this outsider looked just like them.

"This is the guest room, please rest in here while I let my father know about your arrival," Hakuren said as they arrived to a traditional japanese room. He opened the door for her and closed it after she stepped inside.

_"Well, this certainly brings back memories."_ she thought looking around the room, and then decided to put her rucksack in one corner before sitting down against the wall.

Hakuren seemed to be quite nice, his mindset was different from the members back home. She hoped that everyone in this clan was this open minded. Her heart beat quite fast thinking of all the possible things that could happen next. She could either be greeted with hugs, or kicked back out. If she did get kicked out, she won't have anywhere to go until September. Also, she'd be back to square one in the search for both her brother and the people who murdered her entire clan. But now that she thought about it, why was she still alive. If the murderers were still in their mansion when she was running away, why wasn't she murdered like the rest. Were the murderers just wanting to make a few quick bucks by selling her off to someone, or was there more to the story than she actually thought. Professional assassins were taught to kill without hesitation, or that was what she always thought and after meeting Killua, her doubts were confirmed. She could go in circles all day and come up with many possible conclusions to what might have happened, but in order to find out which of those conclusions was the right one, she had to find the person who actually survived the attack and got out with an injury.

A few moments later, a couple of maids entered the room with a spare change of clothes to change into. "Ojou-sama, we brought _proper_ clothes for you to change into," One of them said, emphasising on the fact that the clothes Himeko was wearing right now wasn't appropriate to be worn by someone like her.

_"Proper? Does it look like I'm wearing a curtain?"_ She thought to herself in a sarcastic tone, before looking at the clothes and accessories they were carrying. _"Great, it's going to take them half an hour to put me into that dress."_

Her clothes did stand out quite a lot, and not a lot of people would have seen a girl in shorts and a t-shirt. To be honest, it was unheard of for someone on this side of the wall to wear something like that. She remembered that not a lot of people would be allowed to go past the first wall, and only higher ups would be able to go into the outside world past the second wall. Most servants and guards lived in an area past the first wall, and before starting to work there, most of them would have to agree to cut any contacts with the outside world. Yes, even most of the servants had to cut contact with the outside world just so their isn't any information leaked. It was a harsh rule to obey, but becoming a servant of the Inoue clan required determination. However, the benefits did outweigh the cons, and the servants were treated with respect, were given full meals, a proper home and most importantly, peace and quiet.

They brought her traditional robes to wear that were a combination of a light and a darker pink, and they also brought a gold head ornament. After closing the door, they proceeded to dress Himeko in the robes, and later one of them did her hair. Her hair was quite short, but surprisingly silky, so it was easy to comb through it and arrange it accordingly.

"Hanako ojou-sama's clothes are a perfect fit for you, just as we thought," one of the maids said as they continued to dress her.

"Hanako ojou-sama?" Himeko asked curiously, noticing that the name sounded oddly similar to her own.

"She is the youngest child of the head, and a little taller than you, but I'm guessing that you two are of the same age," she continued, "She is a little shy though, but a very kind girl."

_"Hm.."_ Himeko started to imagine how she would look like. If she was the youngest child of the head, then she must have been Hakuren's younger sister. When hearing the maid talk about Hanako, she could feel that they were genuine about their words, they weren't trying to lie to her for the sake of keeping the job. _"She sounds all princess like, well compared to me. They said these clothes are a perfect fit, but the chest area is a bit loose. They had to pin it with a safety pin for it to actually fit." _

"Your hair is very soft," the other maid pointed out as she carefully combed through it, "It's a shame though since you've cut it so short, long hair would have suited you better."

"It's easier to take care of short hair, and it also dries pretty quickly compared to longer hair," Himeko began to explain, but more importantly she didn't want to deal with the hassle of having long hair while travelling.

"You are right, Himeko ojou-sama," the maid agreed, "it is hard to look after longer hair, especially when you do not have the time to take care of it. Although long hair would have suited someone like yourself more, you still look incredibly beautiful with shorter hair. Not everyone is blessed enough to look good with any hair length, but seeing as you are an Inoue, I'm not surprised either."

The maids genuinely sounded like they enjoyed what they did. Being showered in compliments wasn't entirely new to her, maids would usually compliment her no matter what she wore in the past, but hearing so many compliments all at ones flustered her a little.

_"Feels weird having others dress you after such a long time,"_ she thought while she was getting her hair done. After the maid arranged the hair ornament, she left along with the other maids. Although they sounded a little judgemental when they first came in, they were very kind to her, treating her like she belonged to the clan. But then again, they were servants and it was their job to do so. Himeko was alone in the room once again, and without anything to do, she could only wait for someone else to come in and greet her, _"I guess I'll have to wait."_

Half an hour later, she heard footsteps heading towards her room. They were quite soft and quiet footsteps, so she assumed that they belonged to a woman. The door opened and outside was a beautiful woman with long, black hair and a dark purple robe. The servants who were standing on either side of her bowed as she entered the room, and closed the door behind her.

Himeko stood up and bowed as the woman entered the room,_ "Wow, she's so pretty."_

"Himeko, right?" She asked as she slowly approached her.

"Yes, ma'am!" Himeko stuttered, still taken away by how beautiful the woman was. She caressed Himeko's cheek when she stood in front of her.

"You do take after your mother," she smiled at her gently. "The last time I saw her was when we were both children, but no matter how long ago it might have been, I can never forget her face."

"My mother?" She asked. "Do you know her?"

"Yes, she is a cousin of mine. I used to be in your branch of the clan before my parents and my sisters moved to this clan."

To avoid internal conflict, members of the main clan would be allowed to move to the side branch if both clans agreed. Compared to the side clan, the people of the main clan were more pacifistic and didn't like to get involved in any form of conflict, while the people of the side clan thought that the only way to obtain more power and to become more influential in the world was to become stronger. However, as soon as you decide to move to the other clan, you cannot move back. Due to this, the number of members in the main clan decreased by a lot.

"I'm truly happy to see that you are still alive, Himeko. Putting our clans' conflicts aside, we are still a big family and we were all broken when we heard the news about your side of the clan being murdered." She told her regretfully. It warmed Himeko's heart and suddenly, all her worries flew away. She wasn't nervous to meet the other members of the clan anymore, and was sure that she finally found a new home. The people she met so far were all different from how she imagined them to be but then again, time changes people as Kurapika said. Not everyone will remain close minded for long, and the Inoue clan was a good proof of this.

After a small conversation, the woman left the room. She told her that her husband, the head, was currently in a meeting and will see her as soon as he was done. While waiting, Himeko decided to look through her rucksack for her phone. There was a message on it.

* * *

**Killua :**

**[View Attachment]**

_Kou, Kurapika, Leorio, I hope you are all doing fine. Killua and I decided to train and make some money at the Heaven's Arena! Can't wait to see everyone again in September - Gon_

* * *

The message seemed to be from Gon, but sent through Killua's phone since Gon did not have a phone. There was also a picture attached of Gon and Killua in front of the Heaven's arena. It wasn't sent too long ago, and Himeko was somewhat happy to see that the pair managed to come up with something they wanted to do until september.

Just that moment, another message arrived.

* * *

**Leorio :**

**[View Attachment]**

_Just finished buying books for the medical exam. Good to see that you and Killua decided on something to do._

* * *

Leorio sent a reply to Gon's message with a picture of him sitting at a desk. frowning while looking at the piles of papers and books.

It made Himeko laugh, _"These guys never change!"_ She thought to herself before she decided to send a reply too.

* * *

**Himeko :**

**[View Attachment]**

_I arrived at the mansion (without getting lost….too much). I've met an aunt and a cousin of mine, and so far everyone has been really nice to me. I'm still really nervous though and I haven't met the head yet. My aunt said that he will be having a talk with me… so scared!_

* * *

She sent the message to them along with a picture she took showing a peace sign, while flashing a nervous smile that perfectly described her emotions at that given moment.

Another message came through from Gon.

* * *

**Killua :**

**[View Attachment]**

_Good luck you two!_

* * *

Himeko decided to open up the picture, only to see Gon with his usual big grin giving them a thumbs up, while Killua was photobombing at the back. She then decided to send a text back.

* * *

**Himeko :**

_Good luck everyone! _

* * *

**Leorio :**

_Good luck, and make sure to send me all the luck you can. I seriously need all the luck I can get!_

* * *

**Killua : **

_LOOOL, good luck old geezer!_ xD

* * *

**Killua :**

_That was Killua, not me by the way._

* * *

**Killua :**

_Well yeah, it's my phone after all! -_-_

* * *

**Killua :**

_Why are you texting, you are standing right next to me?_

* * *

**Killua :**

_Because it's my phone and I can do whatever I want with it! :P_

* * *

**Leorio :**

_Shut up you two, my phone keeps ringing because of you. I can't concentrate like this! _

* * *

**Killua :**

_Make me shut up, old man! :D_

* * *

**Killua : **

_Leorio, can't you just switch your phone off or something?_

* * *

**Killua :**

_Yeah, old geezer. Just switch off your phone if it bothers you so much -_-_

* * *

**Leorio : **

_..._

* * *

The messages eventually died down, but there was still no sign from Kurapika, no matter how long she waited. _"Maybe he's busy,"_ she thought. _"He did want to find a job after all."_

There was a voice outside the door, "Milady, please follow me!" One of the servants bowed his head after opening the door. She put her phone back and got up. She walked out into the hallway before one of the servants closed the door. One of them led the way with Himeko walking right behind him, while the other two walked close behind her. As they were walking down the hallway, eyes were still stuck on her. They were all curious to who this girl was, and why she was treated like someone so important since her arrival. They then arrived in a large hall room with a platform where the head of the clan sat. His wife, Hakuren and a much younger girl were sitting next to him. The other major clan members were lined up on either side of the room facing each other. There were four on both sides, all men.

"I have brought her as you've requested, milord," the servants bowed. The head has dismissed them afterwards, and the servants left the hall, leaving only Himeko alone in front of the leaders of the clan. She tried not to show any fear by trying to control her shaking left hand with her right hand, but she couldn't help but be anxious with so many people judging her. There was a silence in the room as everyone was looking at her, and she couldn't find any words to break the silence.

"Please, introduce yourself!" The head finally broke the silence, and the air suddenly felt a lot lighter now that she has been given permission to talk.

"I'm from the main clan. My name is Himeko Inoue, I'm the second child of Hachirou Inoue, the previous head of the main clan." She introduced herself without stuttering, "I managed to escape the massacre four years ago."

"You managed to escape?" He asked in surprise.

"Yes," she nodded, "I managed to escape and live alone for four years."

"Four years, huh? That's a really long time!"

"Yes, indeed," she agreed. He did not ask any further questions, so the room was in complete silence again, so she decided to ask something instead. "My brother also made it out alive, so I was just thinking that he might have come here too."

"Your brother?" He questioned. "Unfortunately, we did not have any other visitors from your clan."

"I see," she was disappointed hearing his response. She hoped that her brother would have maybe dropped by at some point in the past, but now that she had confirmed that Hakuryuu hasn't come to the side clan, she had no where else she could look. He could be anywhere on the planet, and she didn't have a clue on where she could start looking.

"Don't let your head hang so low, he could show up in the future, right?" He smiled, trying to liven up her mood again. He was right, she had only recently decided to stop by at the side clan, so maybe he would come by in the future. "Oh, how rude of me, I haven't even introduced myself yet." He stood up and he was followed by his wife and children. "I'm the head of the side branch, Gorou Inoue," he introduced himself.

"It's a pleasure," Himeko bowed her head slightly.

"This is my wife, I'm sure she has already had a conversation with you earlier on," he introduced his wife who was standing on his right. "This is Hakuren Inoue, my eldest son and also the heir to the clan. You already met him by the gates and he has shown you in," Hakuren was standing on his left side, "Next to Hakuren is my second child, Hanako Inoue."

_"Hakuryuu and Himeko, Hakuren and Hanako. It's like we are counterparts or something like that. Someone should have copyrighted us!"_ Himeko thought, repeating their names in her head. The girl was around Himeko's age, there was probably only a year or maybe two difference. Her hair was longer than that of Himeko's, and reached her waist and her fringe was clipped back. Unlike the other three who were standing next to her, she did not smile. She seemed a little cold and distant than the others.

Gorou stepped down from the platform and walked towards Himeko, "You've been through a lot," he gently patted her head. "From now on, you'll be a child of mine, just like Hakuren and Hanako."

"Thank you, that means a lot to me."

"I will be throwing a banquet to celebrate your arrival tonight with the whole clan. I will formally introduce you to the clan then," He informed her. She felt really honoured to have a celebration for her arrival. The side clan was a lot different than she initially thought. She thought that the clan was a lot more violent and ruthless, but they turned out to be the opposite of what she thought. It made the pacifistic main branch clan look pathetic with their forceful approaches. "I'll see you tonight then," he smiled at her. "Hakuren, escort her back to her room."

"Yes, father," Hakuren excused himself to escort Himeko back into her room. Hakuren led the way back to the guest room she was staying at, with Himeko following him close behind him.

"Could you show me around the estate instead?" She asked him when they ended up in front of the guest room. "I'd probably go insane if I were stuck in a room by myself until evening."

"Sure, if that's what you'd like. I never really thought that you would want to walk around, so I never really offered to show you around. But then again, you spent four years beyond the walls, so I can understand."

Hakuren showed Himeko around the mansion first, it reminded her a lot of the mansion she lived in. It was a traditional japanese mansion with many rooms to occupy all the members of the clans. But compared to her mansion, this one was a lot brighter. There were more people living in this mansion making it a more livelier place to live in compared to hers back home. There was also a yard that was in the centre of the mansion and there was a big space of land surrounding the mansion where children were usually allowed to play. Then there was a huge wall sealing off the area with a large gate guarded by guards, and the area past the gate also belonged to the clan. The radii of this area was a couple of kilometres and there was a little village for the servants and guards to live. The area was surrounded by a second, even taller wall, which Himeko somehow managed to climb. Past the second gate was the forest and if you kept walking you would eventually reach the mountain. The clan also owned most of the forest apart from the bit near the the mountain. There was a second forest on the other side of the mountain which wasn't owned by the clan or anyone for that matter.

"This feels so nostalgic, it feels like back home!" Himeko said happily as they were taking a stroll in the area past the first gate.

"Say, how is the world past the second gate?" Hakuren was curious of what the real world really looked like. He has been outside a few times, but he wasn't able to get a real taste of it.

"The real world?" She asked, thinking about what kind of answer she should give him. Having had fantasies of what the outside world looked like herself when she was younger, Himeko could only imagine what kind of paradise Hakuren thought it was, but she didn't want to lie to him. "It's cold, harsh and scary," she told him honestly, "Having lived in luxury and being thrown out into the real world was frightening. I never liked it out there, to be honest I felt safer within the gates. I was all alone for four whole years."

"What are the people like out there?" His curiosity couldn't be satisfied with the harsh truth, Hakuren wanted to know more. He wanted to know the truth. "The servants pamper us here, so I want to know how it is out there."

"It's not much different," she admitted, "Money is what matters most outside, the more money you have, the more people will obey you. As someone who didn't have a penny out there, I had to work a lot just to get a roof over my head." Hakuren's fantasies of the real world soon vanished after hearing Himeko talk about it, and she honestly didn't even feel bad about it. Hakuren was soon going to be able to go outside as the head of the clan, and he had to know what kind of people were out there. Of course, she did not tell him about being sold into research but she did tell him that things like that happen outside.

"That sounds horrible. To think that people can be so cruel, it makes me feel blessed to be born into this clan."

"Yeah, I thought it was horrible too until quite recently," she continued, "I managed to make friends. Friends who accepted me for who I am and friends who looked out for me, even though it was just for a while."

"Really? Tell me about them!" It was quite rare for anyone from the clan to have any proper friends. They only had their servants and their relatives to play with, so the idea of having friends was quite strange.

"I'll start off with this boy called Gon," She started off, and he noticed that her tone became a lot more cheerful and bright. She wasn't talking as Himeko anymore, it was Kou that was talking instead.

"Gon?" He questioned, "That's a really strange name!"

"Yes, and he is just as his strange as his name. He is on an adventure to find his father, but can you believe that he is only my age?"

"Really?" He asked in surprise, wondering why he was looking for his father in the first place. If anything, Hakuren always thought that a family was supposed to live together, not go looking for each other.

"Yes, he is so cheerful and I've never actually seen him be negative," she continued to tell him stories of Gon during the Hunter exam, "You know, there was this one time where we were lost and he used his nose to follow the scent of another friends to get us out. And he also uses a fishing rod to do everything besides fishing," She laughed at all the odd little things she managed to remember about Gon.

"Sounds like someone I'd like to meet." He was listening to her intently. "Is there anyone else?"

"Yes, there is Leorio."

"Leorio?" He asked, "Is he also your age?"

"Nope, he looks like he is forty, but he is actually nineteen."

"I can picture that a little!" Hakuren said as he tried to imagine what Leorio might look like, but it didn't seem like it was a pleasant image he saw.

"He came off as a self-centred and narcissistic guy at first, but he is actually kinda cool," she explained, before she continued to tell him about Leorio's ambitions, "He wants to become a doctor and wants to save people without charging them any money. He is currently studying to enter a medical school."

"That's really nice of him," He said to which Himeko nodded. "Father told me that medical fees in the outside world can be really expensive. Leorio must have a really good heart if he wants to save people for free."

"Yeah, Leorio is really nice." Himeko agreed before moving on. "There are two others, Kurapika and Killua, who do you want to hear about next?"

"We'll go with Kurapika first then." Hakuren ended up picking the name that sounded the most unique out of the two, athough both Kurapika and Killua were names he had never heard before.

"Kurapika," Himeko thought for a while. "He is someone who seems to understand me the most. He lost his family, no his entire clan just like me and is the only survivor. He is really mature and brave, and he stands up for what's right. He is also a really good listener and very smart too."

Compared to what she had told him about Gon and Leorio, he noticed that she seemed to brag a lot more about Kurapika, "Sounds like you're really fond of Kurapika."

"Yeah," She laughed nervously, feeling her cheeks heat up a little. "He was the one who suggested that I should come and visit this clan and if he hadn't told me, I probably wouldn't have had enough courage to come and I wouldn't have met any of you."

"He sounds like a great person," Hakuren commented, "thanks to him, we gained one more family member into our clan," he smiled proudly, "What about the other one? Killua, was it?"

"Killua?" She started thinking deeply. "Well, he bickers a lot and acts like a child but he is pretty smart at times. He is quite a good fighter and really strong. I think he is only older than me by a few months, but he was the strongest out of all of us," she said honestly, "I didn't trust him for a really long time, but I feel like I can relate to him in the sense that we both had our future decided by us. Thinking about it, I pity him a little because although he tried to run away, he couldn't escape for too long until his brother found him."

"Escape?"

"He is the heir of their family business," she explained, but didn't mention the fact that their family art was assassination though, that would have given Hakuren the shock of his life.

"So in a way, he is like the two of us." Hakuren said.

"I feel like I can relate to him at times, but at other times I feel like we lived in completely different worlds."

"I think I understand what you mean, it's a bit like you and me. We are both from the same clan, both the children of the heads but we are completely different."

"Enough of me, you should talk about yourself Hakuren-sama!" Himeko was curious of how the other Inoues lived.

"I already consider you as my sister just like Hanako, so you should call me brother instead. Think of me as another brother just like Hakuryuu." He didn't like how formal Himeko was. "You really reminded me of Hanako when I first saw you at the gates, which is why I probably believed you were who you claimed you were."

"I don't think I look a lot like her, I mean, we do have the eye colour and the hair colour in common, but the whole clan has the same eye and hair colour," Himeko disagreed. "Besides, I think your sister is a lot prettier than me."

He couldn't help but smile at her honesty. Hakuren proceeded to talk about the clan and Himeko just listened to him. He turned out to be just like Hakuryuu; smart, talented and charming. He was the type that was good at everything he did, a naturally born leader and the clan's prodigy. The only difference of course was that Hakuren was a lot more approachable than Hakuryuu. Her brother used to play with her and their cousins when he was younger, but he became a lot more distant and quiet once he became older. She was glad that Hakuren didn't turn out the same way.

After walking around for a few hours, Hakuren decided to escort Himeko back to the room she was staying at. Not too soon after, the same maids from earlier came in with a new set of clothes that were meant for a more formal event. After getting dressed, she was escorted into a large dining hall that had multiple tables set out, enough for everyone in the clan to sit. Himeko was taken to the table with Gorou and his family. Once the whole clan arrived, Gorou decided to announce the arrival of Himeko to everyone in the clan.

"I have gathered everyone in the clan to celebrate the arrival of Himeko here, she survived the massacre of the main Inoue clan a couple years ago. We have all mourned about the loss of our brothers and sisters in the main clan and no matter how much dispute our ancestors had between themselves, they were still part of our family. From this day forth, Himeko Inoue is part of this clan." He announced. "Feast to your hearts content, as from today onwards, I have a third child I will raise with Hakuren and Hanako." With that announcement from the head, the atmosphere livened up and the members happily greeted Himeko and welcomed her to the clan.

* * *

**A/n -** How do you like the side clan so far?

Once again thanks for favouriting/following/reviewing ^^ It means a lot to me knowing that so many people are actually reading this!


	14. Hakuren and Hanako

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 12**

_Hakuren and Hanako_

...

During the banquet, Himeko decided to tell Gorou and his wife stories that happened during the Hunter exam. Meeting Gon and the others was quite a blessing for her, so she happily shared the stories of all the challenges they faced. From the journey to the exam site, to the failed cooking and the long week on Zevil island with all kinds of monsters, she didn't leave any detail untold and started to brag about how great her friends were. Gon was someone she trusted since he first spoke to her, while Kurapika and Leorio took some time for her to warm up to. Killua was a strange case; as soon as she started to warm up to him, her trust in him disappeared once he told her about being an assassin. However, after seeing what happened during the final phase of the exam and during their visit to his estate she understood that he never wanted to be a bad person. He was raised to become who he was now, and he did his best to fight against his so called fate. She couldn't do anything about the way she was brought up either, and his family was as controlling as hers, maybe even worse, and Killua tried to rebel by running away from home only to be dragged back by Illumi. Of course Himeko missed out confidential information such as Kurapika being from the Kurta clan, and Killua being a Zoldyck. These people were family to her, but she couldn't reveal that Kurapika was from a clan whose eyes were worth billions, and that Killua's dead corpse was worth billions too. Greed is part of human nature and it didn't rely on how nice someone was, and even she felt like she was being greedy at times.

"You took the Hunter exam?" Gorou asked, still not able to believe. He knew that being second in line to become the head meant that she had to be intelligent, but the Hunter exam was a completely different story. Who knew that such a little girl had it in her to become a Hunter, let alone know how to fight. Girls in the Inoue clan weren't meant to be trained in the first place. Girls were meant to be intelligent and skilled, while boys had to be intelligent, skilled and strong. You could call it sexism, but the Inoue clan just called it tradition.

"Yes, and I have a Hunter license to prove it too!" She said with a proud, satisfied grin. "But of course, I had help from my friends I met during the exam."

No matter how proud she was of herself, she couldn't deny that she got help from everyone. Inoues were prideful and because of the way most of them were brought up, they had a tendency to judge people and look down on them. Even Himeko was the judgemental type, sometimes looking at a person and scoffing at their actions without getting to know them better. Even so, it would have hurt her pride even more if she were to tell them that she completed the exam with no help.

"My, what a smart girl you are Himeko!" Gorou's wife smiled proudly. Himeko was her cousin's daughter after all, and her passing the Hunter exam at her age was an achievement for the Inoue clan as no other woman, or child her age has done it before.

"She is quite talkative too. We spent more than an hour talking earlier on the day," Hakuren added, still remembering every single detail of the Hunter exam story, but he still enjoyed listening to it all again. It was the only way for him to experience what it was truly like to live outside. Sure, he'd be granted permission to visit the outside world once he became the head, but that way he'd only be able to catch a glimpse of what was beyond the walls, and all the people living out there. People who were both richer, and poorer than them, he'll never be able to experience the thrill of how it is to live outside the clan.

"That's because Hakuren nii-sama kept asking questions for over an hour," Himeko pointed out, making the couple laugh whole heartedly. Somehow, talking to Gorou and his wife was similar to talking to her own parents. They all had the same aura around them, yet Himeko felt a lot more comfortable talking to Gorou and his wife, and felt satisfied whenever they praised her and laughed at her adventures. Her parents were different when she was younger, her brother was their only priority, leaving Himeko trying to catch up to him as fast as she could. But no matter how much she tried, she was always left behind in his dust. However, Himeko felt like she had changed over the past four years after her clan's death. She went through a lot of pain, both physically and emotionally, but it shaped her into the person she was right now. She learnt to take care of herself, she learnt how to deal with people and get as much out of them as possible, and she learnt to win the bread herself. Nonetheless, she felt like she learnt the most from the Hunter exam. While talking to Gorou and his wife, she tried to imagine her own parents' reaction to her adventures. She wondered whether they'd be proud of her now that she had experienced more than they would have ever thought, and she wondered whether she would have finally be on par with her brother.

"She has quite a bright and witty personality too," Gorou commented, "Your parents must have been really proud of you." There it was, she felt content hearing those words from him. However, she was starting to wonder how her genius brother was doing right now. The prodigy of the Inoue clan, what was he doing and where was he right now? Moreover, she wondered what kind of things that genius brother of hers learnt over the past four years, and whether she was still living in his shadows.

"To be honest, I'm nothing compared to my brother," she confessed, "He was our clan's pride, and my mother always used to say how he could possibly become one of the our clan's best leaders."

"You must be really proud of your brother yourself," Hakuren pointed out, "You seem really proud whenever you speak of him. I really want to meet him the more you speak of him."

"Speaking of Hakuryuu, if he is alive like you said, then we'll help you find him!" Gorou promised her again. "I'll do everything in my power to find your brother. It's the duty of a parent to make their children happy after all."

"Thank you very much, I would really appreciate it." She felt really grateful that his uncle took the responsibility himself. He hadn't even known her for a full day yet, but he was already treating her like his own daughter. Because of this, Himeko felt comfortable asking for more. "But, I do have one more request."

The couple was curious to hear what else she wanted, "What is it?" they asked.

"I want you to help me find the criminals responsible for my clan's death," she requested. "I'm sure you have strong troops so it will assist me with my quest."

"If that's all you want, I'll find the murderers and behead them myself," Gorou offered.

"No, you don't have to go through the trouble and get your hands dirty."

"I'll consider it my duty to avenge my brothers and sisters from the other clan!" He told her firmly. However, looking at Himeko's expression it seemed like she still wasn't satisfied with that all. "It seems like something else is on your mind Himeko. What is it?"

She wanted to find her brother, and she wanted to find him so she could find out who massacred her clan, but she still wasn't satisfied with that thought. She still felt empty, she wanted more than just that. They say revenge is bitter sweet, but she wanted more than just a bitter sweet ending to her story. She didn't want the bitter after taste lingering around in her mouth.

"I actually wanted to rebuild the main clan after finding my brother again, but I'm thinking that it would be better to join the two clans back together. After all, we consider each other as family, so we do not have any reason to live separately anymore." She suggested. "Maybe after rejoining the clans, we can reform it. It might be hard for you to let go of the older beliefs, but I personally think it's for the best. We can give the members freedom and knowledge of the world outside because I think that we can learn a lot from the people who live outside the walls. We can reform the rules of marrying within the clan as there are many people outside who would be better marriage partners. We can form alliances with other noble clans by marriage and by this, we can create more peace and avoid a lot of conflict between clans."

Everyone on the table listened intently and seemed to have a couple of different reactions to it. Gorou's wife seemed to be a little taken back by Himeko's will to change the clan, and Gorou seemed surprised but also amazed by her ideas. However, he also felt a little threatened by her knowledge of the outside world. She was still young, but was a very smart girl and he felt like this girl could do just what she said, which he did not want at all. Hakuren on the other hand was impressed by Himeko's courage to stand up and talk about her own believes because in actuality, he never had the courage to stand up for his own believes, not even once.

"Merging the clans does sound good, right dear?" Gorou turned to his wife who agreed. The couple managed to cover up their expressions and change the topic. But to be honest, he did like the idea of merging the clans, after all, the main clan did have a mansion and a bigger land than the side clan. "Himeko has quite a lot of good proposals, don't you agree? I think she'll be a great help to the clan. You should learn from her Hanako!"

It was the first time the couple gave attention to their daughter who was sitting there the whole time.

"I just wish Hanako would be at least half as cheerful as Himeko. You should spend more time with Himeko and learn from her," Gorou's wife added, "She is bright, light-hearted, selfless and sounds like a good future leader. She is also very beautiful."

Himeko found that the conversation quickly became tense. The couple were just using the opportunity to put down their own daughter. Hanako looked like she felt very uncomfortable with her parents pointing out her flaws and comparing her to someone else. It wasn't just Hanako, but Himeko noticed that Hakuren couldn't do anything but sit quietly and not do anything about it. He couldn't tell his parents to stop comparing his sister to Himeko.

This whole situation reminded Himeko of something very well. Hanako looked down on her lap, not knowing what to say in response. Should she really apologise for the person she was? Himeko could relate to Hanako a little too much, it was almost as if she was Hanako at some point in her life. Yes, that was it, it reminded her of how her parents would compare her to her brother all the time, but this time, the roles switched. She was the one someone else was being compared to. But no matter which position she was in, she did not like it.

"I'm sorry." These were the only words Hanako could bring out, and it hurt Himeko to see her like that. When looking at Hanako, Himeko thought that she was looking into a mirror. A mirror to the past, or a mirror to an alternate reality where her clan's massacre never occurred in the first place. A reality where she had never been through physical torture and hardships but a reality where she was still stuck playing the princess she never wanted to be. A reality where she wasn't able to roam as free as she did right now. It was sad, she knew that if she was still stuck in the clan, she wouldn't have gotten the courage to stand up for herself. She would have still tried to chase that pointless goal of hers and catch up to her older brother; and she would have never succeeded either.

"Please stop!" She said. "I'm sure Hanako-sama capable of a lot of great things. She is a lot prettier than me, graceful and elegant, something I am not. If you give her time, she will become better than me, so please stop putting her down like that."

It was something Himeko wanted to say to her parents but she never had the courage to stick up for herself, so she decided to stick up for Hanako who she thought of her mirror image. It felt like she was doing it for herself rather than for Hanako, and it made her feel a little selfish, but those words were lingering around in her mouth for such a long time.

_'Stop comparing me to my brother, if you just leave me alone and give me the freedom to become a good person, I can do it!' _She always wanted to tell her parents this, but she was always too afraid to do so.

"My parents always compared me to my older brother, but once I was able to decide my own future, I grew into the person I am right now. If you give Lady Hanako the same freedom, she'd be able to exceed your expectations for sure." Himeko declared confidently. The couple couldn't do anything but listen to her quietly. They were lost for words.

"Fine, if that's what Himeko wants then we'll do it!" Gorou smiled, breaking out of their moment of silence. "If you think our daughter can grow into a fine young woman, then we'll believe you."

With those words, the banquet continued. Himeko noticed a slight smile on Hanako's face which made her happy. She never had anyone to stand up for her, so she decided to stand up for someone who she saw as herself. Himeko continued to talk about her travels, making the couple laugh a couple of times here and there.

After the banquet was over, Himeko was once again approached by the other members of the clan and they quickly grew fond of her. Four years ago, she wouldn't have been able to make so many people grow fond of her. They bombarded her with questions, complimented her and praised her. Afterwards, Hakuren was once again asked to escort her back to the room she was staying in. They walked down the hallway in silence until Hakuren stopped walking.

"You're really amazing, you changed the atmosphere of the clan in just one day and stood up for what you believe. I'm ashamed to admit this, but I've never had the courage to do so." He confessed, embarrassed at the fact that someone so much younger than him could do everything he only wished for. He turned around to face her and gave her a ninety degree bow. "Thank you so much for coming to the clan, thank you so much for standing up for my sister."

"Hey, stop it!" Himeko interrupted him. He raised his head. "An older brother should never lower his head to his younger sister. You said that yourself, that I'm the same as Hanako. That means you are my older brother and Hanako is my sister. I was just doing what any sister would have done!"

With that, Himeko smiled and left to her room. Hakuren was glad Himeko came to the clan, he believed that she could make a change and he greatly admired her for that. Although he told her to look up to him as an older brother, he felt like he was the one looking up to her. He felt like Himeko could be the moon that can light up what seemed like an endless night.

In Himeko's room, the maids came to help her change out of the clothes she was wearing and prepared her a futon to sleep on. She decided to lie down as soon as they left and plan the days ahead. She was thinking of planning to go and search for her brother in a couple of days. The sooner she started, the better. It would be a good idea to start the search near the old mansion and finding some clues around there. An injured boy would have caught the eyes of many, but she also had to consider the possibility of him not being alive anymore too. It had been four long years since the incident and he was severely injured at the time. He also encountered Hisoka, which according to her was bad news itself. As she was deep in thoughts, she heard a voice outside the door.

"Excuse me? Himeko-sama, are you asleep?" Himeko got up from her futon and look towards the door. It was a quiet and timid voice she heard coming from the outside.

"I'm still awake, you can come in!" Himeko answered. The door slid open, and to her surprise it was Hanako. "What brings you out here?" Himeko asked seeing her surprise visitor.

Hanako decided to come inside the room and close the door. "Thank you for earlier," she bowed.

"You and your brother are really good at thanking people, aren't you?" Himeko sighed. "Give it a rest already, I didn't save the planet or anything."

"You're right, thanking people is one of the few things I'm good at!" She admitted. "I was just really happy when you stood up for me."

"I know, you were smiling throughout the banquet," Himeko pointed out.

"Really? You noticed?" Hanako covered her cheeks in embarrassment. "Ah, that's so embarrassing!"

"Look, you can be pretty funny." Himeko told her while chuckling. "You are just putting yourself down. You don't need me to do stand up for you, you can do that yourself! You are capable of that."

"You think so?"

"Yep!" Himeko nodded. "If not, then this older sister or younger sister, whichever I am, will help you until you can stand up for yourself."

"I'm eleven."

"That means I'm a year older than you," Himeko informed her, "I'm twelve!"

"So you are older?" Hanako asked, slightly surprised. She looked Himeko up and down, "You don't look it though."

"What do you mean by that? If you cut your hair shorter, added a front fringe and drew on a beauty mark underneath your mouth you'd look the same as me. I don't know what you're talking about."

"But I'm a little taller," Hanako pointed out, "I also have a bigger chest."

"Seriously, you remind me of this guy I know!" She sighed, remembering what Killua would always say. Now that he wasn't around, she had found another person to laugh at her flat chest. "I'm twelve for goodness sake, some girls just grow boobs later than others. Watch, in a couple of years I'll be taller than you and I will have bigger boobs than you. I'll put both you, Killua and anyone else who cusses my flatness in your places!"

"So, you're challenging me?"

"Well if you want a challenge, you got yourself a challenge Hanako Inoue!"

The two girls found themselves talking to each other for quite a long time. Hanako wanted to know more about Himeko's adventures so Himeko told her. Gon's mischief was probably what interested her the most. Then again, Gon was an odd fellow, so Himeko wasn't surprised at all. It was the third time she repeated the whole Hunter exam story, but this time with more action and comedy. She talked about Gon's happy-go-lucky personality, Kurapika's stubborn and cool personality, Killua's sometimes bratty but also wise personality and finally Leorio's obnoxious but kind personality. She told her about Hisoka, the clown-magician-pedophile she never wanted to meet again and Hanzo, the ninja that handed out business cards. She talked about Tonpa, the potato nosed jerk that tried to sabotage them before the first phase and during Trick Tower. She mentioned Chairman Netero, the strong old but irresponsible man who challenged three kids just to kill time. She couldn't help but talk about Buhara who was able to feast on so many pigs and Menchi who threw just as many bitch fits. Satotz's inhumane stamina and Lippo's little game in Trick Tower were also good stories to tell. There was also the adventures to Killua's mansion which Himeko unfortunately had to cut down since she didn't want to reveal too much about him. Listening to all this, Hanako didn't grow curious of the world outside but the people who lived there.

Once Himeko was done story telling, Hanako decided to give her a make over just for fun. She found it a lot more fun talking to Himeko since she seemed like she was a lot more honest than most children in the clan. Himeko didn't have a reason to lie, neither did she have a need to suck up to the higher ups in the clan so she was brutally honest.

"You know, you'd be really popular among men if you take better care of yourself," Hanako pointed out, "You probably are already though."

"Really?" Hanako did have a point there. Himeko didn't have a single female friend, she only had male friends, although none of them liked her in a romantic way. In one way or another, she was pretty popular among guys, although none of them were interested in her romantically. Himeko got out a few things from her rucksack and Hanako decided to do Himeko's hair for her.

"You know, I always imagined girls with a short ponytail to look very pretty." she explained as she combed her hair, "We usually grow our hair out, and my mother never allows me to cut it shorter than it already is." She then got a rubber band from Himeko's rucksack and tied her hair up in a ponytail before handing her a small, silver hand mirror.

"Well?" Himeko looked at her own reflection, waiting for Hanako's opinion. "What do you think of it, Miss Stylist?"

"Hmm... you know, you might actually be more popular among girls than boys," Hanako joked. "You look like a pretty boy!" She wasn't too off the mark, Himeko's facial features didn't exactly match one of an cute, innocent girl. Compared to Hanako's large, round eyes, Himeko's were sharp and almost cat-like. Judging by her eyes alone, Hanako assumed that her cousin was energetic, and a prankster. One of those typical tomboys that grew up standing up to boys that bullied her, and wouldn't be seen without a plaster on her face. Of course, Himeko was the opposite as a child but Hanako didn't know that. Her comment wasn't meant to offend her, Hanako just used it to describe that her older cousin was breaking all the norms of the Inoue clan. From being a fighter, to being able to earn respect from the whole clan. She was trying to point out how girls would look up to her and want to be just like her, at least the ones from her clan.

Of course, Himeko didn't interpret Hanako's message correctly, "Fine, it doesn't suit me," she pouted and took of the rubber band. "I'll just leave it as it is."

"That's not what I meant!" Hanako protested, "Maybe pigtails would look cute."

"Nope. I'm not letting you do my hair."

"What about a braid?"

"Nope!" She refused again. "Besides, how does your hair look in a ponytail? I'm curious." Hearing this, Hanako combed her hair and put it up in a ponytail. She had long, silky hair, so she was able to put up her hair with ease. Not just that, now that her hair was out of her face, you could see Hanako's facial features better. "Hmm…. take it off now." Himeko said pouting in dissatisfaction. "It looks cute on you!"

"Don't be so upset about it. You'd probably look good with long hair. You look cute with short hair too, I doubt I'd be able to pull it off."

"You really think so?" Himeko asked with sparkling eyes. Hanako just laughed at her sudden outburst. It was the first time Hanako could tell her honest opinion, and Himeko didn't get angry at her for expression herself. It was a lot of fun for her and it was also exciting now that she had Himeko to play with every day. The two kept each other company and Hanako decided to stay in Himeko's room for the night. Himeko enjoyed her company, so she didn't mind too much. They both shared a futon since it was quite large.

"Promise me to introduce me to all your friends, okay?" Hanako requested, but she fell asleep before Himeko could answer her. She probably talked more than she usually did and all the excitement exhausted her. Himeko got up and noticed that one blanket was not enough for the two of them. It was quite late, so she didn't want to disturb anyone. Calling the maids could wake Hanako up, so she decided to get up and get a spare blanket herself.

She walked down the hallway and came across a room that still had lights on, and people were still talking inside. She heard one of them mention her name. It caught her attention.

* * *

**A/n -** Short chapter, sorry. I've already got two longer chapters written so I'll publish them sometime this week. Bye for now ~


	15. Clan of Lies

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 13**

_Clan of Lies_

_..._

"Milord, that girl has too much knowledge of the outside world." She heard a voice from the inside, it sounded like a couple of men were inside the room talking to Gorou."It could become a threat to our clan in the future if she stays."

"It's a whole clan against one little girl," she then heard Gorou argue back. "There is not much she can do by herself in the clan, but in a long run, her presence in the clan would be a great advantage to us."

"But milord, if she is able to somehow convince your son to change the clan in the future, he will do it."

"I've thought of that problem already. I'm planning to send Hakuren away for a few years so he doesn't get too influenced by that girl. We'll shape him so he won't sway because of her," he began to explain his plan. "When he comes back, I was thinking of getting the two married. Himeko makes a better marriage partner than Hanako, and besides she is the heir to the main clan. As the heir, she will be entitled to the mansion of the main clan, their estate and property, as well as their wealth. The main clan was always more powerful and wealthier than us, we lived in their shadows all these years. We'll just make her believe that it's to join the clans back together as she suggested in the first place."

"What about the older brother," another one of his men pointed out, "isn't she only the second in line?"

"It's been four years since that girl has last seen her brother," Gorou reminded his men, "She claimed that her brother was severely injured back then, so even if he made it out of there, he is probably dead now. For now, we'll just have to earn her trust."

Hearing their conversation made her furious, _"I don't feel that cold anymore,"_ she thought, referring to the extra blanket she wanted to get. One side of her wanted to burst inside and interrupt their conversation, letting them know that she had heard their master plan to use her, yet her legs started walking away on their own. She was angry, but one side of her wondered whether there was a point in being mad at them in the first place. She willingly chose to believe the madness herself, so they weren't the crazy ones, she was. She quietly headed back to her room where Hanako was still deep asleep. In a way, she envied Hanako. She didn't have a clue on how corrupt her clan was, and in a way it was better not knowing, but Himeko had always had a feeling that there was something wrong with the way their clan dealt with things. Pacifistic or not, right now she didn't want to trust either side of the clan, especially knowing that her side of the clan associated themselves with the infamous Zoldycks. Neither Killua nor her really understood what kind of odd friendship their fathers had, but she was too afraid to question it knowing that she'd regret having asked. _"I didn't really expect much when I came here anyway."_

Himeko didn't know where that sudden trust in strangers came from, it didn't even take a day for her to warm up to her family. It wasn't like her trusting people so easily, and meeting her friends was a good example of this. It took her days to warm up to Kurapika and Leorio, and it took her nearly a month to start trusting Killua, so the fact that she managed to trust Gorou in less than a day surprised her. She didn't know what it was, and she didn't want to accept the fact that Gon changed her over the past couple of weeks. Meeting new people and getting attached to them was finally able to satisfy her loneliness, but she wanted more. Now that she knew what it was like to constantly be surrounded by people that cared for her, she blindly chose to trust strangers forgetting that they might end up using her. It took her long to realise, but once she did, she felt completely stupid.

_"Seriously, what am I even doing with my life,"_ she started mocking herself. _"Leorio is studying to get into a medical school, Gon and Killua are training to become stronger and Kurapika is getting closer to avenging his clan. What am I doing? I'm looking for someone who is probably dead by now, I'm trying to create peace between a non-existent and a thick-headed clan, I'm trying to avenge my clan when I don't even know who killed them in the first place!"_

She continued to curse at herself while silently facing the ceiling. After talking to Kurapika, she seemed to have her goals sorted but now, they just seemed ridiculous and pointless. It wasn't too obvious at first, but now that she was starting to compare her own goals to her friends' goals, hers just sounded unreachable, something a girl so small couldn't accomplish. What was the point of coming to the side clan? What was the point of going through the trouble of taking the Hunter exam? What was the point of running away from those researchers doing experiments on humans? What was the point of even getting out alive from the clan's massacre? Why her, why not someone like her brother Hakuryuu who would have probably avenged his clan by now?

She started to feel tears running down from her eyes and decided to turn and face the door, just in case Hanako woke up. There was no other way for her to express her anger, she couldn't even blame anyone else for her own stupidity.

"Himeko-sama, are you awake?" She heard a sleepy voice next to her. Himeko didn't respond, simply because she didn't want Hanako to worry. _"She must be asleep, did she give me all of the blanket?"_ Hanako shared some of the blanket with Himeko. "You know, you really amazing," Hanako started talking out loud, thinking that Himeko must be asleep. "The fact that you can live independently at such a young age, the fact that you can make people look your way and draw them closer to you." Himeko just listened to her quietly, thinking how wrong her cousin truly was. "I'm sure you'll be able to find your brother, he is probably waiting for his younger sister to grow up and find him, just like how Hakuren nii-sama always used to wait to be found by me when we used to play hide and seek as children. I thought he'd be disappointed like the other children when I found him, but he was always overjoyed when I managed to find him," Hanako continued to tell her. "I'm sure Hakuryuu nii-sama is the same, he probably only looks cold on the outside but on the inside he loves you like Hakuren nii-sama loves me. He's waiting for you to find him and after seeing you grown up he would be proud of his little sister. "

Himeko listened while clenching her teeth, sobbing quietly. She didn't want to let Hanako down, who by now is like a sister to her. Hanako couldn't be blamed for whatever her parents did, so Himeko couldn't bear a grudge against her. They had only known each other for a day, but the fact that she thought so highly of her moved Himeko. "Well, there's no point of me talking since you're asleep, so I'll sleep too," She said, burying her head into the pillow, "Good night."

Hanako fell asleep once again and at this point, Himeko decided on three things. She will meet Gorou tomorrow and settle things once and for all between the head of the side clan and herself; as the temporary head of the main clan. She will expect things to become complicated, so she will leave the side clan and go off to investigate her brother on her own. She will find out who killed her clan and get her revenge, and she will manage to do it alone without the need to rely on anyone. But for now, she decided to wipe away her tears and fall asleep.

The next morning, Himeko woke up when she heard one of the maids open the door. Hanako woke up soon after, and one of the maids escorted Hanako back to her own room while the other remained behind with Himeko. "I've brought todays set of robes and jewellery," she said, carefully laying out the expensive, blue colour dress on the floor.

_"I still don't understand why it's necessary to wear that all when you are staying home and doing nothing all day,"_ Himeko thought, just thinking about how long it would take to change in and out of those clothes. _"I see no point in it, it's actually wasting the nice clothes."_

"Ojou-sama?" The maid tried to get Himeko's attention. "Let me help you get dressed for the day."

_"There's not much of a point since I'm going to leave today anyway,"_ Himeko thought before sighing loudly, _"But it's going to be a hassle to get her to leave now."_

"Ojou-sama?"

"You can leave the set of clothes here, I can change into them." Himeko told her, trying to get rid of the maid so she could change into her normal clothes.

But the maid just ended up protesting, "No, it's my duty as a servant to assist you in the morning."

"It's fine, I've dressed myself for four years," Himeko tried to reassure her, "I'm sure I won't die if I do it for another day."

"But-"

"No but's, this is an order!" Hearing Himeko's harsh and demanding tone, the maid didn't talk back, but bowed politely and left the room as she was asked to. _"Maybe I was a little harsh on her…" _It made her feel a little bad for taking her anger out on her, and although she just made herself sound like a spoilt princess, she had to get rid of her somehow. Nonetheless, once the maid left Himeko got out her rucksack and found the dress she wore during the Hunter exam. She managed to wash and iron it after the exam was over while everyone else was getting ready to depart for Kukuroo mountain. Luckily, she always brought a spare set of clothes because she didn't know what would have happened to the other set of clothes she wore on the way to the side clan. The maids must have thrown that set away after changing her out of it. Instead of wearing the dress the maid brought over, Himeko changed into the dress she wore during the Hunter exam. She left the prepared set of clothes and jewellery untouched, put on her rucksack and walked out closing the door behind her. She walked down the hallway to the hall where she could find Gorou. Luckily for her, he had no visitors at that time.

"Ah, Himeko. Come in!" He smiled at her. "Did the maid not bring you the new set of clothes? I will arrange another maid to-"

Before he could continue telling his lies, she decided to interrupt him. "There is no need," she told him firmly. Gorou still didn't look like he figured the situation out yet, but he knew that there was something off about Himeko today. She was a lot more obedient and respectful the previous day, this was the first time cut him off while talking. He figured that it wasn't because she finally became more comfortable around him, but there must have been a different reason for her sudden change in character. Whatever it was, Gorou didn't like it but he remained composed in front of her.

Gorou decided to continue acting clueless until Himeko revealed the problem herself. "Well, is there anything else bothering you?"

Himeko carefully scanned the room. The men around her were the same people he talked to last night, they were also some of the major decision makers in the clan. She noticed that Gorou wasn't going to show any signs of weakness anytime soon, but some of the other men were starting to fidget. Although the head was calm and composed, she could tell that they were all guilty. It was written all over their faces, and she used this as the perfect opportunity to bring it up, wanting to see how everyone around her reacted.

"I'd like to talk to you regarding last night!" She informed Gorou, and as soon as she said that, she noticed a couple of the men tense up. Seeing this, she knew that she had hit the nail on the head without even mentioning what specifically she wanted to talk about. It could have easily been anything, yet the guilt on some of their faces just gave it all away.

"Last night?" Gorou continued pretending not to know anything, "I went to sleep quite early last night, did something happen?"

"There is no need to beat around the bush," she started to grow more impatient. "I overheard your conversation last night, so there is no need to hide anything from me anymore. You can save us both some time and just confess right now."

"You!" One the men standing on the side decided to interrupt, having heard enough of her rude way of talking to their leader. "Do you realise who you're talking to?"

She turned to look at the elderly man before answering, "Gorou Inoue, the head of the side clan," she said indifferently, "Why are you asking?"

"Who do you think you are?" Another man on the other side shouted. "Show some respect to your elders!"

"Who I think I am?" She repeated their question in a mocking tone, "I'm Himeko Inoue, the current head of the main Inoue clan," she answered confidently, almost to the point where she could be labelled as cocky. Her statement alone was more than enough to shock everyone around her, but what she said next gobsmacked them. "That reminds me, shouldn't you be the one showing respect to me? I mean, someone your age should know how to respect an authority figure."

Hearing that response from her was more than enough to make them quieten down, yet they couldn't help but feel angry at the disrespectful way she was speaking to them. All of them were authority figures in the clan, important in one way or another and they were all important enough to make decisions involving the whole clan. They didn't want to be disrespected by a child like her, and one of them chose to speak out, "What makes you so sure you're the head?"

"Why not?" She questioned, waiting for them to give her a logical answer, "Wasn't it you all who confirmed that my brother was dead?" She asked them. "Let's see, so the previous head, my father passed away four years ago. Technically my older brother would take his place, but if he too is deceased, would you be kind enough to remind me what happens when the first in line dies?"

"The second in line would take over." Unfortunately for them, Himeko's way of thinking was correct. There was no proof that Hakuryuu was alive, and there was no proof that he was dead which meant that passing on the power to Himeko until Hakuryuu was found would be the only sane solution. In other words, Himeko, or the second in line to become head of the main Inoue clan will act as a temporary head until Hakuryuu's whereabouts was known.

"And who exactly is second in line?" The men decided to keep quiet and let their leader handle this. With Himeko as a higher authority figure than them, they were in no position to talk anymore. The only person who would be able to give her orders would be someone of more, or equal authority as her, and in this case that would be Gorou.

"Himeko, why don't we discuss this like adults?" He suggested, trying to bring some peace into the room. He couldn't deny it though, the fact that the same obedient girl was able to make such a big fuss amused him a little. In the clan, no one talked back to him, not his wife, not his children, not even the men working for him.

"I'm twelve years old, I haven't even hit puberty yet and you want me to discuss this as an adult?" She raised her brow at him in annoyance. "But then again, you don't talk like an adult either, so why don't we just talk this out like children instead?" She started to mock him, noticing that he was starting to lose his patience too. "Let's be honest here, I'm not interested in chit-chatting with you, one day of disrespect was more than enough, and even that was pushing it a little. But then again, I shouldn't have expected more. You might be able to send your son away and manipulate him, but do you really think it will work against someone like me? Also, as long as I stand as the head, people like you won't get a penny of what my clan worked so hard to protect."

"As long as you stand, huh?" His expression started to darken, hearing her talk. "What if the main clan's last survivor gets into a tragic accident, would I still not be able to acquire what is rightfully ours?"

"You left the clan by your own choice, you have no rights anymore!" she reminded him, "Your rights have been stripped away from you as soon as you left. You, no, none of you are entitled to anything that belongs to the main clan. I won't give you a penny of what truly belongs to the main clan!"

Gorou waited for Himeko to finish talking. She was courageous, something he hadn't seen in a very long time. It entertained him hearing her set down her own ground of rules, she was only twelve years old but she was clearly very aware of what she was saying. Whether she had prepared everything beforehand or not, she was still able to impress Gorou. Not even his nineteen year old son would be able to be this confident when talking to him. He started applauding her, and Himeko silently stared at him not knowing what he was planning on doing next.

"Truthfully, you are a very smart girl," he admitted, "Our conversation yesterday actually reminded me that there is still more fortune we can get hold of. Fortune that is worth more than that of the side clan who have been living in the shadows of the main clan for decades. The side clan that was looked down upon by others because we are the bad apples."

"It was your choice to leave, so you don't have the right to blame us." She repeated, pointing out that it was Gorou's own fault for leaving the main clan. It was his choice, he should've calculated the pro's and con's before leaving in the first place and having left now, he shouldn't have the right to complain. While she was talking though, Himeko suddenly noticed a group of guards enter the hall. She cautiously looked around, keeping count of the men approaching her slowly.

"Do you understand now?" Gorou questioned, noticing that his men have caught her eye, "No matter what your position is, you could be the head of the main clan, you could even be god, but you're currently standing in my empire."

The guards surrounded her slowly. Everyone was well aware of the fact that she was a Hunter and that she'd be able to fight, but no one knew the extends of her abilities. But judging from her small build, Gorou didn't expect her that much. Himeko watched the guards getting closer, and with just one strike she was about to knock out the group of men. Surprisingly she felt a lot stronger than she did back during the Hunter exam, and she only realised now when she had to fight again. It was possibly the results of her training with Zeboro, and although she only did his chores for a week and a half, she was surprised to see how much she managed to improve. The fact that he helped her gain control over her strength was also evident as she only knocked the guards unconscious without giving them any major injuries.

"Tsk, that insolent brat is better than I thought." Gorou muttered under his breath. "These guards are useless if a child like her can beat them." While everyone was caught up in the panic, Gorou stood up from his seat ready to give Himeko a challenge she wouldn't be able to overcome. "Call _them_!" He ordered his men, but they just turned to look at Gorou with horror written all over the faces.

"B-but milord, you shouldn't use the-"

"That's an order!" Following Gorou's demand, his men moved closer to him in fear. Himeko didn't know what was about to happen, but seeing how everyone was scared of something, she knew it definitely wasn't anything good.

She waited a while before she felt a massive aura approach the room. Was it maybe hundreds, no thousands of men maybe? The air felt heavy, it was almost suffocating for her to breathe. Heavy footsteps came closer to the room and finally, only five men appeared who carried the immense aura of one thousand soldiers. Himeko felt threatened by just their presence, she did not want to fight them. The men wore the same uniform as the normal guards, but in white and not black. Each one of them was also wearing a distinctive, japanese mask, something the other soldiers did not.

"Let's see how the Hunter will do against real _Beast_."

That word rang a bell, but Himeko still didn't want to believe that it was true. "Beasts?" It couldn't be, she refused to believe it. But surprisingly, her thoughts turned out to be true as the men took off their masks one by one to reveal their cold, and blood-lusting eyes. Pale faces, as if they were stripped their souls and will to live, and red bloodshot eyes. These men were sleep deprived for whatever reason, yet they were still able to keep going. There was a difference between them and Hisoka, Illumi and even Killua. Hisoka's bloodlust was a way to satisfy his own boredom and similarly Illumi and Killua only killed to relieve their own stress, but these soldiers merely served their master, and killed anyone in their way.

Himeko slowly took steps backwards, their aura was suppressing her will to fight. They weren't ordinary humans, they were Beasts. The only difference between them and Himeko were their wills. Himeko had a will of her own, while the five men, they did not. They were an empty shell, and Himeko would have ended up just like them if she wasn't able to escape. Just thinking about that gave her goosebumps. "I can't fight," she pushed down the seemingly large lump in her throat seeing how these men got dangerously close to her. "I won't fight them."

"Now that's a good girl!" Gorou praised her, watching the whole scene from his throne, before offering her a lifeline. "How about we just forget about today's incident and continue life just as I planned?"

Himeko clenched her fists in frustration, there wasn't much she could do other than give in. She couldn't fight those monsters, she knew she wasn't strong enough and she would most likely end up dead, but she didn't want to give in either. She had a long life ahead of her, and she knew what exactly she wanted to do with it.

"I'm not going to fight," she declared. "But I'm not going to stay and follow your orders either. I'm not a puppet anymore, I've cut the strings off long ago and I'm not going to let someone else attach a new set of strings."

Gorou chose to remind her that he was the one in charge, "You either obey, or die." Hearing his words, the five men moved closer to Himeko, not leaving her a gap to escape. She looked like a mouse trapped in between five cats. "It's your choice, choose wisely."

_"It's five against one, so even if I can take out one or two, I wouldn't be able to take care of all five of them," _she concluded,_ "Worst of all, the others could attack me when I'm wide open." _It wasn't a matter of who was stronger now that she managed to calm down, it all came down to numbers. These men were all trained, but that didn't change the fact that Himeko still did some training. Besides, she knew that there was something she had that would give her an advantage over them if used correctly; a fully functioning brain. These men knew their order, but everything going through their minds would be their order to kill their target. They didn't care how, as long as they managed to get rid of her their mission was done. All they were waiting for was for her to act, and Himeko prepared to attack. _"I can't afford to stay in a place like this forever, even if I did Gon would come and trash this place."_ she thought to herself. _"I guess I'll just try making the boys' life a little less hectic. I promised to help Kurapika out in Yorkshin after all."_

But before she could proceed to attack, a voice echoed through the hall, "Father, stop this nonsense!" Himeko's attention shifted from the enemy to where the voice was coming from. It belonged to Hakuren who had overheard most of their conversation.

"Hakuren, stay out of this," Gorou ordered his son, but Hakuren just pushed past the five beasts and stood next to Himeko. "This is something for both of the heads to decide."

"That is exactly why I'm getting involved, as the future Head of the clan." With Hakuren standing there, Gorou hesitated to order the Beasts to take down Himeko just in case something happened to him. He was the clan's future after all, Hanako didn't have any leader like qualities to take over the clan. "If you want to fight her, you'll have to go through me first."

Gorou stared at his son who was stubbornly standing in the middle of a warzone. In the end, Gorou told his men to retreat and with his words, the Beasts walked out of the hall as if nothing happened to return to their original posts. Himeko and Hakuren were the only ones left standing in front of Gorou.

"I've listened to you son, now what will you do?" Gorou asked Hakuren. This was the first time Hakuren stood up to his father with so much determination so he was curious of what his son will do next.

"I will decide a suitable punishment for Himeko Inoue," Hakuren stated, not only drawing the attention of Himeko, but also his father and his father's men. As far as they were concerned, Hakuren was far to soft to assign any sorts of punishments to a family member, and considering that he grew quite fond of Himeko and considered her as a younger sister, it surprised them. "I, Hakuren Inoue, the future head of the side clan would like Himeko Inoue, the current acting head of the main clan, to leave this place immediately. You are expelled from the side clan and you won't be allowed to enter until further notice."

Himeko knew his motives behind this and turned to Hakuren, bowed and quietly left the place. He took charge, asked his father for permission to deal with her and has dealt with her in an orderly fashion. As for the expulsion, it didn't bother her too much. Now she finally understood that she wasn't welcome anymore, and since Hakuryuu hasn't visited this place she wasn't interested in it either. Rather than that, she just took it as a life lesson to never trust anyone so blindly anymore, even if it is a relative. Once she left, Hakuren also decided to leave without giving his father a second glance. He was a disgrace to the family in his opinion treating a guest the way he did. Himeko wasn't even a guest any longer, she was a family member, his own cousin and his father's niece. Not only did he pretend to care for her, he was also going to use her.

Himeko followed the path leading towards the first gate in silence as the other clan members watched her. She came in one day, was respected by everyone and the very next day she left after causing some kind of commotion with their clan leader. They didn't exactly know what was going on, but neither did they pity her. The main clan and side clan lived separately for years and although they were supposed to be a large family, they just thought of each other as strangers. It was just like seeing another stranger walk past you on the road, and they chose not to associate themselves with her anymore. If their head didn't approve of her, neither would they.

She ordered the guards by the gate to open it, and as the gate was being opened, she heard panting noises behind her. She turned around to see an out of breath Hanako. "Are you planning to leave without saying good bye?" She asked her, but Himeko couldn't reply as she was planning to do just that. "How could you? Weren't you the one who promised to help me find courage? Weren't you going to help me stand up for myself?"

"You don't need me for that anymore," she pointed out with a small smile, "After all, you were the one who gave me the courage to do what I just did."

"But-"

"Thank you for letting me stay, I'll promise to introduce you to my friends if we ever meet again." Himeko cut her off before Hanako could try and unnecessarily talk her out of it. After seeing Hanako so upset, she held up her fist, "Hold up your fist like this." she said, and although Hanako was confused at first, she followed her cousin's orders. Himeko then gave her a light fist-pump before smiling at her, "That was a fist pump," she told, "I'm not a fan of giving people hugs, so that's my way of telling people that I approve of them. You're a really cool person, don't let others put you down Hanako." Hanako desperately held onto her hand, not wanting her to leave. "Don't worry, Hakuren nii-san might have expelled me, but we'll definitely see each other again."

That was enough to make Hanako let go of her hand. As Himeko walked through the gates, she bowed to show her gratitude until the gate was fully shut again. The gate shut, and Himeko felt as if she had officially closed another chapter of her life. No matter how upset she felt, she couldn't bring herself to cry as she expected this all to happen in the first place. It was Kurapika that gave her false hope, and it was her who believed him blinded by the crush she had on him. She decided to continue walking down the path towards the second wall. It was a pretty long journey by foot, considering the fact that the radii of the area was a couple of kilometres, and an hour and a half of walking later, she came closer to the wall. She continued walking, until she suddenly started hearing a horse galloping towards her.

"Himeko-sama!" Hakuren called her name, hoping she'd stop and wait for him. Once he got closer to her, he got off the horse and ran towards her. "I'm sorry for sending you away so rudely. I should have come up with a better solution."

"No, it's actually what I wanted. You helped me get out of a lot of trouble, I should be thanking you."

"Although I asked you to leave today, I promise to find you and bring you back after I become the head."

"Thank you for your offer, but I must decline," she turned him down nicely. A day at the Inoue clan was more than enough for her to realise that she wasn't suited to be living that way anymore. There were so many downfalls of having to live on your own in the cold, and harsh world, but only she knew how much fun it could really be once you got used to it. She might be living against the clan's norms, but that still wouldn't change the fact that she was an Inoue. Hakuren was worried and didn't want to send her out into the wild alone again, and she could completely understand why. There was a good reason the Inoues didn't want to leave their safe mansion, and Himeko's stories about the kinds of money greedy people and criminals living outside the walls couldn't help but worry him even further, yet only she knew what it was really like. "I think you should go back now. I left your sister without saying a proper good bye, so you should go and cheer her up." After saying those words, Himeko decided to turn around and continue walking.

"Aren't you my sister too?" Hakuren stopped her. "It's the duty of the older brother to protect his younger sister, so he doesn't have to lower his head in front of his younger sister." His words caused a silence between them, but Himeko couldn't help but smile. She yearned to hear the same words from her own brother, but hearing them from Hakuren was strangely able to satisfy her too.

"In that case, I'll be looking forward to seeing you again in a few years, Hakuren nii-san!" she grinned, surprising Hakuren slightly by the sudden drop in formality. The same girl couldn't even stutter a word out in front of him the previous day, and called him Hakuren-dono, yet he was happy to hear that she called him by such a familiar term that not even Hanako used being afraid of their parents. "Ah, I'm allowed to call you that am I not?"

"I don't mind at all, it makes me happy to see that you are comfortable enough to call me that."

"Let me warn you though," she started off, and her tone started worrying Hakuren a little. "I'll be travelling the world a lot in the next few years."

"It doesn't matter," Hakuren replied firmly. "I'll find you no matter what."

Himeko smiled at his determination, "Good luck."

"Thank you, and take care, Himeko-sama." He still felt the need to call her with authority, and he wasn't embarrassed about it either. She was a lot younger than her, yet she was mature, wise and talented, he still had a lot to learn in order to become the next leader of the side clan.

"You don't have to call me that anymore," she corrected him before she turned around to see Hakuren bowing his head once more. Seeing how it had become a habit of his, she just shook her head, "Kou," she said, causing him to look up. "Kou will do just fine!" She smiled, before she continued to walk towards the second wall. She proceeded to carefully climb the wall just like she did the day before, leaving Hakuren watch in awe. After she was out of sight, Hakuren decided to take the horse and headed back home to comfort his other sister, Hanako.

Himeko was now in the forest and decided to sit by a tree before wondering what to do next. Maybe she should go and visit Leorio, although that would just interfere with his studying. She thought of going to Heaven's arena where Gon and Killua were training and got out her phone to call them. When she got out her phone, she saw a couple of messages from the previous day. Because of the commotion, she didn't have time to check them.

* * *

**Killua :**

_Killua and I reached the 200th floor of the tower! _

* * *

**Leorio : **

_Congratulations! I also managed to send my application forms for the medical schools in. All I have to do now is ace that entrance exam! _

* * *

**Killua :**

_Wow, seems like the two of us are doing good. I hope Kou and Kurapika are doing good too. Kurapika hasn't responded yet and Kou responded before she was going to meet the head._

* * *

**Leorio :**

_I'm sure Kurapika is busy finding a job. It's hard work, so I guess he can only reply in his free time. I tried to call him the other day but his phone was switched off. _

* * *

**Killua :**

_Really? Sounds tough!_

* * *

**Leorio : **

_I just hope Kou is alright. She seemed pretty happy and excited when she texted us back though. Her relatives seemed to treat her well, they even dressed her in really expensive clothes and jewellery. Makes me wonder why the brat just wears that plain dress all the time when she is that rich._

* * *

**Killua :**

_That idiot probably ended up falling asleep after all the excitement. They probably threw a welcome home party for her. _

* * *

**Killua : **

_Hey, it's rude to call people an idiot, Killua. Also, why can't we eat nice food? We haven't eaten anything good in days._

* * *

**Killua :**

_Gon, why are you asking me via text using my phone when I'm standing right next to you? _

* * *

**Killua :**

_Because it's fun. Besides, you're doing it too. _

* * *

**Leorio :**

_It's night time boys, don't stay up too late._

* * *

That was the last message she got.

_'I just left the clan after things got complicated between me and their head. I probably won't be going back in there, so I guess I'll just have to find something else to do until September'_

This was what Himeko typed first, but couldn't send it. Everyone seemed worried about her until someone mentioned the fact that she was treated well, so she didn't want to worry her friends. They were all busy, Leorio studying for his entrance exam, Gon and Killua training at Heaven's arena and Kurapika who was looking for a job, and she knew that none of them would be able to concentrate knowing that she needed help. She had no where to go now, but she couldn't rely on the boys. She had to handle things like she did in the past, and she was already an expert at it.

* * *

**Himeko :**

_Hey everyone, I'm fine! Just had the best breakfast in years! I'm going horse riding next, and my uncle is going to teach me archery. I'm so excited! He said that I'm like a daughter to him, so he will be raising me from now on and help me find my brother. Can't wait to see you all in September!_

* * *

That was all lies, and though this wasn't the first lie she told them, this one was plain awkward and just made her feel sick in the stomach. Compared to her, all her friends were steps closer to their goals, but she felt as if she was moving backwards.

"Ah, I feel so pathetic now." She sighed before she blew on her fringe. Not too soon later, she started getting replies of her friends who believed her lie and seemed almost envious.

* * *

**Killua :**

_Ahh, you're so lucky!_

* * *

**Killua :**

Show off!

* * *

**Leorio :**

I would kill for a nice breakfast right now, although it's past lunchtime over here.

* * *

Himeko scanned through her messages before putting her phone away without replying. One lie was more than enough.


	16. Facing New Challenges

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 15**

_Facing New Challenges_

_..._

Himeko wandered aimlessly through the forest. It had been a couple of hours since she had left the clan, and she was completely lost trying to find her way out. She could always use the app Killua downloaded for her, but for some odd reason she chose not to. She'd rather walk around in the middle of no where and try to let some of the thoughts disappear. It had always bothered her whenever she got herself lost on the way to an important event, but this time around she had no where to go and nothing to do. September was still months away, which meant that she still had a lot of time to kill. With no goals or ambition driving her forth, she didn't mind wandering these forests for days, weeks or even months. She was alone again, and couldn't wait to be reunited with her circle again. It was hard for someone like her to admit this, and beside all the times she talked big about not needing anyone to feel satisfied, she truly wished to have someone to talk to again.

_"I should have just stayed back with Gon," _she thought, knowing how hard him and Killua would be training right now. At least then she would have gotten something useful out of the time she had wasted, gotten stronger and maybe had some time to think of a proper plan to approach the side clan and use them to find Hakuryuu. She sighed, _"what's done is done, I can't go back and neither can I go and disturb Gon and Killua halfway through their training. I have to train too until then!" _The thought of everyone becoming stronger than her didn't sit so right in her stomach, but when she suddenly heard a loud growling sound she knew that there was something else wrong with her stomach. "I'm hungry..."

The last meal she had was on the previous night, and although she managed to clear her head a little while walking around, it just ended up making her more hungry. She didn't stay long enough at the clan to have breakfast, and she honestly started to regret her decision. Pride didn't allow her to stay behind and eat something a backstabber offered her, and because of her prideful and stuck-up nature she had to suffer the consequences. After all the commotion and drama she dealt with over the past day she couldn't help but feel fatigued, and her head began to feel light headed. Himeko didn't think too much of it at first, hoping it would eventually go away by itself, but instead it just became worse. Light-headedness soon escalated to dizziness, and it wasn't too long until she finally gave in and blacked out.

Around half an hour past since Himeko fainted in the middle of the forest, but luckily she was unharmed. There were a few scratches on her body from the sudden fall, but other than that she wasn't attacked by a wild animal, or raided by a thief while she was unconscious. However, two men did find her knocked out cold while they were wandering through the area and placed her feet up on a shoulder bag the younger man was carrying in order for the blood to flow back down.

"Sensei, she is waking up!" Himeko opened her eyes to see a fairly handsome, young man with black messy hair and monolid, hazel eyes. Once Himeko managed to fully open up her eyes, she was able to distinguish his features better. He reminded her of one of those lean, exotic, foreign models you would only see in fashion magazines. But in contrast to his looks, his clothes were pretty outdated. They reminded her of what her brother would wear while training in the dojo, but a much cheaper, navy blue version of her brother's hakama. As he offered her a hand to help her back up, he was suddenly pushed away by a much older, bald man with bushy, white eyebrows and a white beard. He was much shorter than the younger boy, maybe a couple of inches taller than Killua. He too was wearing a grey hakama, so Himeko assumed that the two belonged to some sort of local shrine or dojo.

Seeing how these strangers were getting awfully close to her, Himeko decided to stand back up slowly by herself. She took a moment to look around the area before remembering what had happened to her. Realising that she just fainted in the middle of no where, she mentally scolded herself for being so careless. But she wasn't the only one scolding herself.

"A young girl like you shouldn't be wandering around in a forest like this!" The old man scolded her in a loud, irritation voice before proceeding to pull her ear as punishment. Himeko who didn't know who this stranger was, wasn't to thrilled by the fact that he was touching her without her permission.

"What do you think you are doing?!" She started arguing back in a defensive tone, "First of all, let go of me this instant," she ordered, trying to release herself from his tight grip, "I don't even know who you are!"

"Silence!" The man yelled back, but this time in a much more authoritative tone, expecting Himeko to obey his commands. Hearing his commanding voice, she actually stopped struggling and chose to hear him out instead. "A child like you doesn't belong in a forest like this, there are dangerous creatures and people lurking around everywhere."

"We just wanted to know why you are here," the younger man said in a much calmer, and reasonable manner, before turning to his elder. "Sensei, please let her go so she can answer."

The elder man finally let go of Himeko's ear that was no as red as a tomato, and while caressing her burning ear, she started to analyse the pair of men standing in front of her. He only let her go because he was expecting an explanation from her, and for an old man he was surprisingly strong. Not to mention, the younger, good-looking man called him his 'sensei' if she heard correctly. Trusting strangers was one mistake she wasn't willing to repeat again, especially after coming across two shady characters like them. She just had to find a way out lie her way out of the situation and exit.

"I'm actually a Hunter," she started explaining, drawing the men's attention. "I heard this forest was diverse in life, so I came to have a look at it myself." Himeko knew for a fact that Hunters were paid to do these kinds of ecological surveys, so these kinds of jobs were quite common to many Hunters. It was an easy and fast was to earn some quick cash. While one person seemed more convinced by her story than the other, she still continued. "I didn't have breakfast in the morning, so I guess I just blanked out."

The young man offered her a cup of water whilst deeply listening to her reasoning. "So, you are a Hunter?"

"Yeah, that's right!" She said, accepting the cup and taking a quick sip from it. "I'm quite new to the job, so I was just trying to gain some experience by travelling."

"You are no Hunter!" The older man rudely interrupted their conversation, which angered her a little. He wasn't trying to be mean to her, he was being bluntly honest. Whether it was the way she looked, or the fact that this old man was just plain rude didn't matter as she herself knew that she was a Hunter.

"I am a Hunter!" She protested back, picking out her brand new Hunter license out of her pocket to prove her statement. "I even have a Hunter license to prove it! See?" She said, proudly showing off her shiny, new Hunter license. The elder snatched the small, plastic card off her hand and started taking a good look at it.

"What the hell is this?" The man questioned mockingly while examining the plastic card. "Is this one of Netero's dry jokes again? Giving children a piece of garbage, and then telling them they are Hunters without giving them proper training. In this age every toddler can go around calling themselves a Hunter, but when I was your age we had to fight to earn our title."

"It's fine if you don't believe me!" Himeko told them, trying to control her anger. She was beyond pissed off at this point, especially seeing how the elder wasn't acknowledging the fact that she was a real Hunter. It took hard work for her to get this far and get herself a license, so the fact that an old man was calling her a liar didn't sit straight. Although the man was stubborn, she felt the need to prove him wrong because he was indeed wrong.

"Toshi, did you and the others get something like this too after passing the exam?" The elder asked his disciple, still not wanting to acknowledge Himeko .

"Yes we did, but you snapped them in half, remember Sensei?" Toshi sighed, remembering the fate of his own irreplaceable license a few years back. Himeko noticed that the old man was bending the license and immediately decided to snatch it off him.

"Are you trying to snap my license?" She started yelling at him, putting her license away safely. "We can't get them replaced!"

"Stop shouting at your elders!" The old man yelled at her, silencing her yet again. Himeko remained silent to try and cool off her head, staring hard at the elder man. Sure, he was a lot older than her and her parents had always taught her to respect her elders, but this man didn't act his age. To even think that this man was the younger man's mentor surprised her. Usually martial artists required self discipline; something this old man didn't have. In a way, she always thought that martial artists would be a lot cooler than him and he didn't exactly fit the image she was thinking of all this time.

Realising that it wasn't worth trying to argue with this stubborn old man anymore, she decided to turn to the younger, much calmer man instead, "You mentioned having a Hunter licence at some point, are you perhaps a Hunter too?" she asked.

"Yes I am," he answered, "My name is Toshiro," he introduced himself before gesturing to his mentor to introduce him, "and this is my Sensei."

"Sensei?" She questioned them, wondering whether he really was a Hunter, "So he is a Hunter too?"

"Yes," Sensei answered on his own behalf, "and I own a dojo on the mountains."

Himeko looked towards the single mountain standing in the distance, separating two forests. Mount Ataago was the tallest mountain in Kioto, and after reading some travel brochures on the way she found out that the mountain was considered sacred to the folks of Kioto. Kioto itself was a place filled with shrines and temples, yet the simple but breathtaking landscapes and old buildings attracted tourists every year. This peaceful city was the place people visited in order to get their wishes granted, and during festival season the number of tourists coming in just to make prayers was astounding. But that wasn't what she found astonishing, the fact that Sensei's dojo was situated on this sacred mountain surprised her the most. Although the Inoue side clan shouldn't be anywhere near this sacred place, she understood that with the money they had they could buy pretty much anything, so buying half of the forest along with more land behind the forest to build their estate shouldn't have been much of a problem.

Sensei however didn't look like he had the money to get him through these things, so she started imagining the extends of his skills. Sure, he didn't look like it and neither did he act like it, but the dojo he owned was built on such an important place, so maybe she was just underestimating him greatly. That wasn't everything, Toshiro looked pretty well trained as well. He had a thin build, but he was very lean. Himeko also noticed how strong his grip was when he opened a water bottle, and his posture was also very good. Little things like these could only be achieved with the help of an expert, and it all lead her back to Sensei. Right now, she needed something to do until September, and she needed to get stronger until then. The only way for her to do so was to find a teacher and start training, and no matter how much this old man annoyed her, she couldn't let the only opportunity slip through her fingers.

"Then, please take me in as one of your students!" Himeko requested, but she was turned down by him almost immediately.

"Sorry, but I don't take in just about anyone," Sensei started to explain, making her grow furious. "I only train the best."

"So you don't think I'm worthy to be trained by you?" She asked furiously. She acknowledged the fact that she wasn't the strongest person alive, neither was she born with the talent to become a martial artist. However, she was determined to become stronger over a course of time and speaking honestly, she was quite strong for someone her age. Whether it was due to the effect of an artificial drug or not, it still didn't change the fact that she was strong, and if Sensei was the master martial artist he claimed to be, he should have sensed this. Despite all this, she still wondered why Sensei didn't want to teach her. It could be because she was only a child, or it could just be because Sensei still had traditional gender stereotypes in mind, or maybe she was just desperately trying to think of a way to make him feel guilty.

"If it makes you that angry, find another teacher kid!" The man said, which angered Himeko even more. He wasn't the slightest bit interested in her although she managed to become a Hunter at such a young age. You had to be at least twelve years old to even apply for the Hunter exam, and the fact that she turned twelve only a month before the exam meant that she must have been one of the, if not possibly the youngest person to take the exam that year and still pass on the first go. To think that a twelve year old girl could do something that most full grown men couldn't was astonishing to some people, but that wasn't enough to impress Sensei. She didn't feel as if she was taken seriously by him; if anything she knew she had both the potential and determination to become stronger and she didn't want just any old teacher, she wanted him to teach her even if it was just to prove him wrong.

"No, I want you to teach me!" She stated stubbornly, "If you think I'm not a worthy student yet, I'll become a one!" The fact that he called her unworthy made her want to study under him even more, but stubbornness wasn't nearly enough to change Sensei's mind. In fact, he hated teaching, and he only looked after the dojo because it was passed down his family. Toshiro of course was one of the exceptions, so Himeko carefully looked at him to try and find the reason why Sensei decided to teach Toshiro. She didn't know what made him special enough to be considered an exception; she was smart, talented, determined, there was nothing she lacked as a student in her own opinion. No, that wasn't everything. Himeko considered herself to be the model student, getting good grades, incredibly sharp, rational, a good critical thinker, independent and most importantly she knew she was a fast learner. She was always better than her cousins back in the clan, so the fact that Sensei turned her request down hurt her pride.

Sensei realised that she wasn't going to give in any time soon, and he had to find a way for her to give in. "Fine," he finally gave in before giving her a challenge, "If you win a fight against Toshiro here, I will take you in."

Sensei gave her an outrageous task, knowing the abilities of his own student all too well. But he didn't care at all, his motive was to get Himeko to fail after all. Whether it was a fair challenge or not, Sensei did not have any intentions of teaching her. She could be smart, but training needed a lot more than just plain determination and confidence. Himeko was pretty determined, but there was a lot more desperation than determination in her. She wanted to become stronger, but he knew that she wanted to do so quickly. A martial artist needed patience, something she lacked.

Toshiro was hesitant to fight her knowing she didn't have a chance to win against him, but seeing how Himeko got ready to fight, he didn't have any other choice but to do the same. However, when prepared to attack, Toshiro managed to knock Himeko out with just one punch in the stomach. Holding onto her stomach in pain, she squatted on the floor not being able to get back up. She didn't know what it was about that punch, but it was more than enough to make her unable to fight any more. It took her some time to realise, but Toshiro purposely knocked her out with one punch, knowing that she wouldn't be able to fight back anymore that way. He couldn't go against his mentor's words, but he found it plain cruel to fight against an amateur.

"Himeko, right?" Sensei asked after his student knocked her out, "You might be strong, but you have a lot to learn. Find a good teacher and train properly to become a real Hunter. As for now, you still don't have the right to call yourself a real Hunter, or do anything with that piece of plastic Netero gave you." The old man decided to walk off along with his student, and although Toshiro felt a little bad for leaving her behind in the middle of no where, he couldn't do anything but follow his teacher. Himeko stumbled back onto her feet while tightly holding her stomach.

"Wait!" She yelled, still not being done with whatever she had to tell them. The elder stopped walking and turned around to listen to what she had to say. "I'm not strong enough to beat your student, but I will become stronger than him, I know I will, just allow me to prove myself. I'll do anything for you to accept me as your student!"

It sounded as if she was going as far as begging the old man when she knew that there were countless of capable teachers out there. She didn't know what got into herself, why did she want to study under him that badly? Was it because he mocked her and called her unworthy? Did she seriously want to prove him wrong that badly? Either way, she needed a teacher to become stronger and after finding one, she wasn't prepared to let him go yet. She came to the realisation that she wasn't strong enough to find her brother alone at this point. There were many strong and dangerous people in this world including Hisoka, Illumi and the Royal Beasts she met back at the mansion. She couldn't afford to back out the next time she meets any of them, or worse, anyone stronger than them.

The old man turned around and looked at her. "No," he gave her the same answer once again.

"Why not?" She questioned him, "Is it because I'm still a kid?"

Sensei raised his brow at her statement. Himeko didn't have any other way to try and convince him other than making him feel guilty. "No," he answered once again, "I've started training one of my students when he was your age, so I don't have anything against training children."

"Then, is it because I'm a girl?" She continued to interrogate her, "Let me guess, you are the type to think that women should stay in the kitchen."

"Wrong again," he informed her, "I've never taught a women before, but I certainly don't have anything against them. Women are just as capable as men."

"Then why?"

"It's because of you," he answered bluntly, "You can be the most capable person alive, but you will aways fail if you don't have the right mindset. A Hunter needs a strong mindset, but yours is weak. You are nothing more than a troublesome child."

"What do you even know about me to judge me like that?" she interrupted him before he could continue talking. "I admit it, I have a weak mindset. I think too much, and I might not be courageous. If I know I can't defeat someone, I will run away, but I want to change that. I want to become stronger and change that about me, and if you aren't willing to help me, can your really call yourself a teacher? I'm not strong, and I might have a weak mindset, but if you are a good teacher you'd be able to make me stronger. I'm not the one with the weak mindset, you are!"

"Hey!" Toshiro intervened. "I understand why you are angry, but Sensei is still an elder, so show some respect!"

Himeko turned over to him, "So you'd just let him talk to you that way?" She questioned. "You won't try and prove him wrong? You are honestly a lot lamer than you look!"

"That's enough!" Sensei started to interrupt the two before their argument escalated any further. Himeko might have had a weak mindset, but she was bluntly honest and he liked that. She didn't seem to care that both Toshiro and him were a lot stronger than her; she was angry and she had to let them know why she was angry. "Fine, I'll give you a challenge. If you pass this, I'll accept you." He proposed after finally giving in. A smile started forming on her face, but seeing this, the old man warned her. "Don't think this challenge is going to be easy. You have the chance to back out now, will you accept my challenge?"

Himeko gave it no second thought, she was desperate to get stronger at this point. She had to be strong enough not to rely on anyone anymore. "I've been through a lot in my life already, I've seen a lot of scary things. I'm not going to back out." She declared and her confidence started to impress the old man. "I'll accept!"

"Fine, so be it." He said hearing her firm answer, before he started to explain the challenge. "On the other side of the mountain is another forest. It is nicknamed the _Forest of Shadows_ since the mountain blocks most of the sunlight there, but that's not the only reason. What makes it so different from this forest are the dangers that lie within it. The population of magical beasts within that forest is quite high mainly due to the cool and dark conditions in that forest. The public has been advised not to enter that forest, and many Hunters have entered but never returned. It's like an entrance to hell." Himeko quietly listened to him speak while Toshiro didn't look happy about the idea, but he decided not to interrupt his master. "Your task is to stay and survive in that forest for a whole week, do you think you'll be up for the challenge?" He asked, and Himeko took a little while to process the information.

"I never go back on my word," she accepted his challenge. "One week, or two, if I want to become your student then I will become your student."

For someone her size those were pretty big words. She might have been desperate, but at the same time she did want to improve her abilities for whatever reasons she had. Sensei came across a number of students in the past, majority of them wanting to become stronger for their own sake. Whether they wanted to learn martial arts to enter competitions, or wanted to earn money and become famous after beating world renowned martial artists. Sensei being the type to hate these kinds of people turned them away, and only ended up accepting students that wanted to learn martial arts not for their own sake, but for the safety of others around them. Some people thought of their skills as a curse, and due to this, not many people actually studied under him. Himeko on the other hand was slightly odd in that sense. She wanted to become stronger for herself, and the more he turned her away, the more she wanted to study under him. She could easily get accepted into any nearby dojo and work her way up, but at this point especially after seeing how strong Toshiro was, she didn't want anyone else but Sensei as a teacher. It wasn't training for the sake of just training, subconsciously she wanted to become stronger not just for herself, but for someone else. She didn't look like she noticed this herself, but instead of turning her away Sensei decided to give her a second chance, even if it meant that this was going to be her final chance.

"Fine, we'll take you to the entrance of the forest." That being said, Sensei and Toshiro took her to the entrance of the other forest past the mountain. They walked past multiple warning signs which worried her a little, but nonetheless she continued keeping her head up high knowing very well that both Sensei and Toshiro were keeping an eye on her expressions. She didn't want them to give her another chance to back out after working so hard to convince Sensei in the first place. She had to prepare herself, she didn't know what could be lurking in this forest but whatever it was, Himeko knew that in this big world she was going to come across worse things. Whether it was on the journey to find her brother, help Kurapika in Yorkshin or fight the criminals that killed her family, she decided to do all that knowing the dangers very well. The trio eventually reached a ten foot tall wire fencing, separating them from the gloomy forest. Himeko took a moment to inspect the tall fence knowing that backing out was still an option for her. It bothered her how dark and eery the forest looked from where they were standing, and the trees looked abnormally tall.

"You don't have to-" Toshiro started off, trying to convince her not to go, but before he could even finish his sentence, she started climbing up the metal fence. Convinced that Himeko wasn't going to change her mind now that she was on the other side, Toshiro kept quiet.

"In a week, we'll meet back here!" Sensei told her, tying a piece of white fabric from his garment to the fence to mark the spot. Himeko hesitantly agreed, trying to remember the exact spot she was standing in. She then gave them a reassuring nod before heading into the forest. Sensei and Toshiro watched her leave, and once she was completely out of sight, Toshiro asked Sensei a question.

"Why did you send her in there?" He questioned him in a slightly irritated tone. "One wrong move, and she could die!" Despite being a Hunter, he knew that Himeko was still young and very had little knowledge of the world around her. She was scared and hesitated before climbing the fence, but he knew that she couldn't imagine what kind of things were lurking around the forest. The first time he went inside the forest, he was older than her, but even at that age he had no idea on what kind of creatures were wandering around the forest.

"If she is who you claimed she is, she has a fifty percent chance of survival," his Sensei told him. "If she can't take control of her natural instincts and continues to fight against her blood, then she will die soon anyway. To me it makes no difference." Toshiro looked into the forest after hearing his mentor's harsh words. He had a point, if she didn't know how to control her power then she would start digging her own grave eventually, but Toshiro couldn't help but feel bad for her. He knew that he could trust his Sensei, but he started to regret not interfering. "Don't make that face, fifty percent is still a good chance," he told him once again. "Besides, you and the other two made it out alive, didn't you? Have some trust in your Sensei."

"I'm not worried about just that," Toshiro confessed, "It's mating season for most of the beasts in there, and that slims her chance down even more."

"Mating season, huh? She'll just have to find a way out." With that, Sensei followed the path back and Toshiro spared the entrance to the forest one last glance before following him. All he could do now was play the waiting game, and hope that Himeko would make it out alive. If she didn't, then a week from now he'll set out with Sensei to try and find her remains.

Inside the forest there were no pathways, mainly due to the fact that it wasn't meant for visitors in the first place. Himeko battled her way through the bushes and thorns on the ground. She thought it might be like Zevil island, but unfortunately it was nothing like it. At least Zevil island had clear paths for her to walk down, while this forest was fully covered with trees and bushes. Despite that, she did decide to first find food for herself and stock up just in case. The experience she had from Zevil island did however give her an idea of what to do to prepare for the days ahead.

She looked around for any fruit trees and eventually found something that looked a little like an apple tree. Seeing the green apples from afar, she decided to get closer and looked up to get a better look at the fruits. Her eyes widened when she saw it, but it was already too late. As soon as she got under the apple tree, dozens of green snakes dropped down, all trying to get close to her and try to bite her.

"Ahh!" She screamed and instinctively threw and kicked all the snakes off her body, ending up with a few bite marks before running away. Her scream made a few birds alert, causing them to make a few different sounds alarming the forest and its creatures of her arrival. At this point she was too startled to worry about the number of bites on her body, or to at least figure out whether they bites were at all venomous. Himeko continued to run away until something grabbed her foot, and started to slowly pull her in. _"What is it now?!"_

In a state of panic, Himeko tried to get into an upright position to get a closer look at what was reeling her in to see that it was the roots of a large tree. She continued to panic and struggle against the roots, hoping that it would eventually let go of her leg after she put up a constant struggle. As she started to pull with more force, it caused the tree to pull harder too. It turned out as a round of tug-of-war where both of them pulled as hard as they could. Himeko tried to position herself upright and use her hands to break of the root before she quickly got up and continued running, this time trying to avoid the trees and any roots that were waiting for her to come in range.

Once she finally reached a riverside she threw her bag aside and stopped running, trying to regain her breath. She had only been in the forest for maybe half an hour and she was already beat up. Her clothes were all muddy because of what happened earlier with the tree, and she had bite marks on her arms and legs. After dropping down onto the floor, she started to check the bite marks on her body. There weren't as many as she initially thought, but never having seen that species of snake before she wasn't exactly sure whether its bites were venomous or not. She wasn't immune to poison, but she had a very high tolerance to it due to the drug she was given. Depending on how strong the venom was, she might actually survive the week before getting out and getting the bite marks treated by a professional.

_"What did I get myself into?"_ She scolded herself, looking around the surprisingly peaceful surrounding. In contrast to what she had just been through, this place looked like paradise on earth. She wanted to stay there for the remaining days, but she couldn't be too sure that she was safe there. Just like land, the deep waters had its shares of monsters lurking around too. At this point, all her brain did was think of all the possible dangers around her; not even an ant seemed safe enough to sit next to anymore. Seeing snakes fall down an apple tree, and the roots of trees move on their own was more than enough to make her imagination run wild with possible ways she might die. An entrance to hell, forest full of mythical creatures, Sensei wasn't exaggerating when he told her about all the dangers surrounding the forest. It made her feel stupid for actually taking his words so lightly, she was so arrogant about her own abilities. Although she was a good liar, Himeko never lied to herself, except for now.

After having calmed her thoughts, she stood back up and walked towards the river to see if it was safe for her to stay. It looked safe enough to drink, but she still tried to touch the water just in case. There was nothing wrong with it, it didn't seem to be highly acidic or anything, and she noticed that the water came straight from the mountains.

"Maybe I should settle down here and set up a camp," she thought, now that the river side was deemed safe. After looking around without going too deep into the forest, she found some fire wood which belonged to some normal trees. She brought the wood back to the camp and started to set up a camp fire. She noticed earlier that there were some fish in the river, so she could catch some. After stepping into the shallow side of the water, she managed to catch some fish and brought them back to her camp, where she fried them and ate.

A few hours later, she decided to rest. However, she was too afraid to close her eyes and kept herself awake, occasionally closing her eyes here and there. The next day, she was still sleepy as she didn't manage to close her eyes once, mainly due to the giant mosquitos at night. After packing up her belongings, Himeko decided to move along the river bank to avoid staying in one place. After finding another shallow spot in the river, she tried her luck catching some fish again. Not wanting to go near another tree again, she had no other choice than eat fish two days in a row. Beggars couldn't be choosers anyway; she could either go back into the forest and find some fruits or edible plants, or she could stay where it was much safer and catch some fish. The fact that one day was already over relieved her, but she still had the rest of the week to go. One day was more than enough to stress her out, leave her on her guard, but then again, she only asked for this herself. Zevil island was nothing like this; the week at Zevil island was a breeze compared to just a day in this hellhole.

_"Why did I even agree to this?"_ She asked herself before looking at her reflection in the water. Dirty clothes, snake and mosquito bites on her body and a purple mark on her leg where the tree root had grabbed her. She frowned looking at her own reflection, comparing her state to how she looked like before she entered the forest. She realised how overly-confident she was with the whole challenge, _"If Leorio and Killua saw me like this, I'd probably become a laughing stock for a whole week."_

Setting down her peach rucksack, she decided to wash her dirty dress. The white-cream colour made the dirt quite noticeable, and seeing her only remaining set of clothes in that state bothered her. She wrapped herself in a towel before washing her dress by the river and leaving it to dry in a safe, dry place and then decided to step in and take a bath. Before she even realised, she stepped in deeper into the water until the water was just by her shoulders.

_"Six more days in this hell hole."_ Himeko decided to take a deep breath before diving into the water, hoping to clean her hair as well as clear her mind. Despite agreeing to do this ridiculous challenge, she tried to think more positively. If she did manage to survive those six days, she would finally be able to do some real training. With her Hunter license acquired, she didn't know what the next step in her search would be. The side clan was finally off her list, and she was absolutely sure that she wasn't welcome there. Wherever her brother was, she would have to find a way to get there. However, Hisoka was the only person who had actually seen him and that news itself was more than enough to trouble her. She had no idea how close Hisoka was to her brother in order to be able to call him by his name, but just like Gon, Hakuryuu seemed to have caught his interest. It made her wonder how strong her brother had become over the years, but that didn't matter. In order to get far in her journey, she needed to become strong enough to have her own back. Other than that, she remembered Sensei telling her firmly that she was no real Hunter, so Himeko grew curious; what did it mean to be a real Hunter?

As she decided to open her eyes in the water, she noticed a pair of legs next to hers, which made her shoot right back up. She looked around, but there was nothing there, but she did remember seeing a pair of slimy and scaly feet underwater. Just that moment, something pushed her down into the water by her head. She struggled against the force in the water and managed to open her eyes again and saw those same pair of legs.

Something was next to her, something that was not visible outside water.

Himeko wasn't a swimmer and could only hold her breath for a matter of seconds, so if she didn't get out of the water soon, she would drown. However, the struggle did her more harm than good. The more she panicked, the more she lost control and it caused her to be pushed even deeper into the water. _"Calm down and think!"_

She tried to reach out for the legs and grabbed tightly onto one of them. The creature struggled against her by kicking her, but she dug her nails into its flesh and bit really hard, which release the force that was holding her down. She managed to get her head out of the water and caught some air before rushing back out of the water. She did hear splashing noises following her, but they stopped before she got out of the water. When she turned back, there was a big, red spot in the water where she last heard the splashing noises following her. But something was strange about all of this.

"I'm not the one who caused that much blood to be lost," she thought to herself before she saw a dense spot around that area. There were a dozen of carnivorous fish around that were attracted to the scent of blood lost by the mysterious creature and if she had stayed in the water for any longer, she would have ended up as fish food. After processing what had just happened, she wrapped herself in the towel again and waited for her dress to dry so she could finally get herself out of there. Who knew what tried to drown her, whether there was more than one of those around and whether those creatures could roam around on land just like her.

Three more days passed, and it was now Himeko's fifth day in the forest. So far she had encountered other beasts near the river side, so she decided that there was no difference between staying in the forest and staying by the river. A couple of days in this hellhole was more than enough to change her attitude. Walking through the dark forest had sharpened her senses and she managed to become more alert of her surrounding. A single twig breaking would startle her and get her ready to defend herself. She had earned a couple of more scars from other animals that attacked her, however, she noticed that most of her scars healed pretty quickly by now. The snake bites from the first day couldn't be seen anymore, and that was just the start. Her own body's abilities were starting surprise her; she would have never guessed that injuries were able to heal this quickly. It could just be her body's own immune system becoming better over time and healing her body faster.

Walking around in the forest, she found some edible fruits which she stuffed into her bag and she also filled up her water bottle before leaving the river side. Having sorted out her food reserves for the day, she looked around for a safe place to rest under a tree. Having sharpened her senses, a small noise was more than enough for her to wake up.

"I can go back in two days. Maybe I should head back tonight, I've come quite deep into the forest after all." She rested her head against her bag and closed her eyes, resting against the tree. A quick nap was well needed before she could continue her journey through the forest.

_..._

_"Himeko?" She heard a voice call her name. "Himeko!" Three year old __Himeko opened her eyes and looked up, only to find herself staring into deep, blue eyes that matched her own. __"Himeko, I found you," ten year old Hakuryuu informed her, a little disappointed by her sister's naivety, "You didn't do a good job in hiding, I could see your dress from behind the tree." This being one of Himeko's only remaining memories of her older brother playing with her and her cousins and being allowed to act his true age._

_"Why?" the little girl started to protest after being the first one found by her brother, "This was a good spot, you cheated!" _

_"Better luck next time." He grinned at her despite her childish accusations as he ruffled through her soft, black hair. The thing Himeko liked about playing with Hakuryuu was that he treated her just like everyone else, but she also ended up being the first one to lose the games. He didn't care who she was or how old she was, he would treat her just like the other kids while playing, and although she always lost, she couldn't recall any times when she had more fun than back in those days. But as Hakuryuu grew older, his responsibilities also grew with him._

_"Hakuryuu!" A voice yelled back from the mansion. They all looked back to see their mother standing in the hallway, "Your teacher is here!"_

_Hakuryuu couldn't do anything but frown knowing that it was finally time for him to go back and burry his nose into books. His sister was obviously still too young to understand where the two were standing in the clan, but he was smart enough to know his and her position in the clan. Knowing that his lessons will take a couple of hours to finish, he looked back at his younger sibling. "Play with everyone else, I'll come back to play as soon as I'm done with my studies, okay?"_

_Himeko obediently nodded and ran back to her cousins who were going to start another round of hide and seek. After watching Himeko run back, Hakuryuu decided to go to his mother who was patiently waiting for him to stop playing around. __However, that very day Himeko waited outside for a long time. Her cousins left to go inside one by one, and she somehow ended up as the only one waiting for her brother to come back so they could play. It soon became dark, but despite the stories of spirits wandering around their mansion, Himeko still remained knowing that her brother will protect her from the evil spirits._

_Just then, a slender man in a traditional black kimono approached her. Seeing the little girl sitting outside, waiting someone caught his attention. Children shouldn't be out at this hour, so the fact that Himeko was out surprised him. Their mother would be too preoccupied with Hakuryuu, while their father was too busy with their clan's business. He immediately went her way to check up on the young girl, and Himeko got slightly startled to see the pale man sit beside him._

_"Himeko ojou-sama, you shouldn't be out in the dark," he said, noticing a few mosquito bites on her neck. Despite her parents not paying much attention to her, she was still considered the clan's jewel by the clan's head. Hachirou treated his daughter as his own treasure, showering her in gifts although he had no time to spend with her. A single scratch on her face would be more than enough to upset him, so the servant started worrying after seeing the mosquito bites she got. "Why did no one notice her being gone?" he started wondering why none of the maids noticed the missing little girl, but right now his priority was to get her back inside before she caught a cold._

_"I'm waiting for nii-chama, Sebastian." Himeko informed her brother's personal butler, "where is nii-chama?"_

_"The young master is still studying," he told her, "why don't we wait inside for him?"_

_Himeko immediately agreed feeling the chilly breeze in the air, and Sebastian proceeded to pick the little girl up and carry her back inside the mansion. After putting some cream onto her bites, he escorted her to Hakuryuu's study room to ensure that she wouldn't hurt herself further. They quietly walked down the long hallway, not wanting to disturb anyone and eventually reached Hakuryuu's study room. Seeing the lights turned on inside, Himeko assumed that he was still inside._

_"Nii-chama, are you done studying yet?" She asked. "Nii-sama?"_

_She was going to slide the door open, but was stopped._

_"Don't come inside!" Hakuryuu shouted from inside. "Just go away and leave me alone!"_

_"But you said you will come and play with me."_

_"Go play by yourself, I'm busy!" Hakuryuu's tone sounded a lot different from before. It was more cold, distant and harsh but it had a hint of sadness to it. Himeko was somewhat startled by it, but not knowing why her brother was like this, she looked over at Sebastian. _

_"Sebastian, is nii-chama still studying?" She questioned in an innocent tone._

_Being Hakuryuu's personal butler, Sebastian knew Hakuryuu's schedule by hard. "Yes, nii-chama is studying," he chose to go with his master's lie, "let's not disturb him, alright?"_

_Himeko nodded in disappointment, and the black haired butler decided to take her back to her own room where she could rest. She obediently followed Sebastian back,__ thinking that Hakuryuu was tired and will play with her next morning, but he didn't. From that day onwards, Hakuryuu acted more distant towards everyone and only talked if it was required of him to talk. Himeko had always wondered why he had no time to play with her anymore, but as she grew older she was finally able to understand the responsibilities they had to bear as siblings. She believed that it was a choice her brother willingly made at the age of ten, __but what she didn't know was that he spent that whole night just lying in bed crying, and wondering why he was born an Inoue._

_..._

Following the sequence of events her brain reminded her of, Himeko shot back up, _"A dream?" _It was another one of her dreams from the past again, and she was starting to wonder why she started to remember all these things all of the sudden. These were mostly sad memories, and she was never truly happy in any of those dreams. However, she couldn't waste time to think about the past; she had to clear her head. If she didn't concentrate, she could die any minute. After stretching, she put on her rucksack and continued to walk through the densely packed forest.

As she continued to walk, she tripped over another tree root that grabbed her by her legs and lifted her up. She had gotten used to this, so she used her other leg to kick the root with force, snapping it in half.

"You still don't give up, huh?" She asked the tree. She got closer to the tree before kicking it a couple of time with brute force. "Don't fuck around with me!" As she kicked the tree, she heard a couple of ravens cawing. She stopped kicking as more and more birds decided to join in, and listened closely. Something was making the ground tremble, and whatever it was, it was coming directly towards her. It was right behind her, and hearing loud panting she turned around. Her eyes widened.

Two days past since the meet up day. Sensei and Toshi arrived after a week like agreed, but no matter how long they waited, Himeko never returned. Sensei decided to come and visit every day after the meet up day to see whether Himeko would return, but there were still no signs of her. The possibility of her being dead was high, but they wanted to give her more time.

Meanwhile, somewhere else in the world two men decided to meet up. One had already arrived, leading against an oak tree waiting for his partner. His messy, black hair contrasted his ghostly pale skin, and his sapphire eyes stood out the most. The tall man wore slim fitting black jeans along with a black turtle neck, showing off his slender but lean built. Another signature feature of his was the beauty spot underneath his lips. He impatiently tapped his foot with arms crossed, until he finally heard a familiar voice.

"Hak-kun!" Another man came running towards him, but he seemed to have an unexpected visitor tagging along with him.

"Ryosuke, we were meant to meet up an hour ago!" He scolded the late comer, wondering whether he actually knew how to read a clock. "And call me by my proper name."

"Sorry, I just brought a visitor, Hakuryuu." Ryosuke started to apologise to Hakuryuu, seeing how impatient he had become. "We ran into each other and he wanted to see you too, so I brought him along."

Ryosuke also had jet black hair that was slightly longer than Hakuryuu's, but his skin was slightly sun-kissed. His eyes were larger than his partners, and contrasting the deep blue eyes were his dark red eyes. They weren't the same as the Kurta clan's scarlet eyes, but just ordinary red eyes. Peeking through his hair were also a pair of ear studs on each ear, something Hakuryuu did not have. However, despite their difference in appearances, the two were both dressed in full black, Ryosuke wearing a pair of fitting black jeans, a loose, black V neck t-shirt along with a black leather jacket keeping him warm in the cooler weather.

Hearing his comrades words, Hakuryuu looked over to see who the visitor was. However, when he came into view, Hakuryuu wasn't at all happy to see him. "Hisoka…" he muttered.

"My, Hak-kun sure has grown up," seeing Hakuryuu's disgusted expression, Hisoka decided to mock him and anger him even further. "Almost didn't recognise you there."

Just like his little sister, Hakuryuu was a short fuse and would lose his temper in a matter of seconds. Though they were siblings, they did however have completely different ways to handle their anger, and Hakuryuu was definitely the much calmer one. "What do you want?" Hakuryuu asked, gritting his teeth while glaring daggers at Hisoka and Ryosuke for bringing him there.

"My my, don't give Ryo-kun such a vicious glare," Hisoka told him, amused by the expression on his face. "I simply asked him to bring me here."

"Yeah Hakuryuu, he said he had some news for you!" Ryosuke informed him, hoping his comrade would eventually calm down. "Hisoka rarely has news for us, so it must be something important."

Knowing that Ryosuke was somewhat right, he managed to calm himself down, "Well, him being here is bad news to begin with," Hakuryuu commented, "What do you want Hisoka? Spit it out!"

"Some people never change!" Hisoka sighed before proceeding. "Kou-chan, I mean Himeko, do you know of her?" He started off, "She looks identical to you, is about this tall and…" Before continuing, Hisoka looked up to see what kind of expression Hakuryuu had on his face. He was disappointed to see that Hakuryuu had not taken the bait, and unlike his younger sister, he seemed rather uninterested. "She claimed to be looking for her older brother, who is also called Hakuryuu. Interesting, is it not?"

His so called news only managed to grab Ryosuke's attention, and seeing how Hakuryuu was denying it he figured Hisoka was right. "You have a sister, Hak-kun?" he asked in surprise. He would have never guessed that Hakuryuu had any siblings in the first place. Although he didn't mention anything about having siblings, Ryosuke always assumed he was an only child due to his stuck-up and slightly self-centred attitude. Him having a younger sister was something he had not expected at all.

"I do have a younger sister," Hakuryuu finally admitted in an indifferent tone, "I didn't think she'd be alive though."

"You have a sister? You never told me!" Ryosuke started to protest at Hakuryuu's secretive nature, "Is she pretty?"

"Ryosuke, which part of _kid sister_ didn't you understand?" Hakuryuu started to grow irritated having to answer more questions about his younger sibling. "She is eight years younger than me, making her nine years younger than you!" He then turned back to Hisoka. "Where did you hear such a thing anyway?"

"She took the Hunter exam with me and passed," He told him proudly before showing off his brand new license. Hearing the news of his younger, fragile sister passing something like the Hunter exam was able to surprise him just a little bit, but knowing Hisoka's motives he remained calm and collected, waiting for him to continue. "She didn't exactly tell me, but I assumed it and judging by her expressing when I asked her, I was right."

"What of it?" Hakuryuu asked coldly.

"Aren't you worried of what happens to her?" Hisoka smirked, trying to rile him up even more. "I'm currently only interested in her friend and a friend of mine is interested in her other friend, so if there is no one who is interested in her, I'll make her my target."

"What do you expect me to do? Form an alliance with you and your friend?" He asked, raising a brow. He proceeded to mock Hisoka's idea of 'fun', knowing that he was now after children that were half his age. "I'll pass the offer, I'm not going to join your club of pedophiles and go around targeting underaged children."

"How disappointing, I actually thought you'd be a guy with a little sister complex!" Hisoka shrugged with a slightly disappointed look, seeing how Hakuryuu just remained uninterested. "I guess I was wrong, and only Kou cares for her older siblings. How pitiful!"

"Just go!"

"Well, my job here is done, I've got to go to the Heaven tower to take care of some business. I'll see you two around." Hisoka left while Hakuryuu and Ryosuke watched him go until he was completely out of sight.

"He's gone!" Ryosuke broke the silence by pointing out the obvious.

"Yes, and don't bring him back." Hakuryuu warned him. "He's bad news."

"What about your sister?" Ryosuke asked him.

"What about her?" Hakuryuu asked coldly, leaving his partner dumbstruck. Not even the news of his own blood being alive was able to bring a smile on his face, and that fact sent a shiver down Ryosuke's spine. Without answering his question, Hakuryuu walked off with Ryosuke quietly following him.

* * *

**A/n -** Hope you had fun reading ^^


	17. Dojo on Mt Ataago

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 16**

_Dojo on Mt. Ataago_

_..._

"Sensei, it's been three days now!" Toshiro suggested for the nth time that day as Himeko still hadn't returned from the forest. Sensei was just about to leave and go to the forest entrance and wait for her, but unlike Sensei, Toshiro had already given up all hopes on finding her alive. It was all their fault for carelessly sending her inside the forest when she clearly wasn't strong enough, so the least they could do was search the forest for her remains. "We should go and search for her already."

"Why do you have so little faith in that girl now?" Sensei asked him after seeing his student's worried expression. "Weren't you the one who claimed to know her?"

"I could have made a mistake," Toshiro lowered his head in frustration. "It might have been someone different, it's been quite a few years since I last saw that specific girl, she could be anywhere right now." Sensei noticed how upset Toshiro looked about the whole situation, as if he was only blaming himself all this time. He thought he knew Himeko, and had some faith in her actually passing Sensei's test. but now that he thought about it, it might have been someone else he met. It had been years since he last met the little girl, and black hair was the most common hair colour in the world, so maybe he did mess up after all. If that was the case and Himeko was lying dead in the forest, it was all his fault. Thinking about that just made his heart drop right into his stomach.

"I'll go and look for her tomorrow, we will give her one more day."

"But what if she dies in that one day?"

"Have some faith Toshi," he continuously tried to calm his pupil down. "After all, I never had much faith in you and the other two, but you still made it out somehow, and look where you are standing right now." Toshiro gave it some thought and Sensei was right; before training he himself was a hopeless case. He could vaguely remember being stuck in that forest for a week with all the numerous obstacles and being on death's doorstep throughout the week but even he made it out alive somehow. If he could do it, then maybe there was a small spark of hope for Himeko to be alive too. Seeing that Toshiro was now much calmer than before, Sensei chose to depart from the dojo. "Well, I shall be leaving now, go and help the others cook lunch."

"Osu!" Toshiro bowed at his Sensei who was leaving the dojo. He watched him walk down the long set of stairs and went back to the kitchen to help his two fellow trainees preparing lunch. However, Sensei returned a few hours later, alone, and there were no signs of Himeko according to him. He tried walking around the forest to see whether she came out of a different exit, but she didn't. By the time he returned, Toshiro and the other two have already set up the table and waited for their Sensei to return in order to eat.

The three students waited for their Sensei to start eating before they started. He was awfully quiet and Toshiro didn't want to ask him how it went. Just looking at the expression on Sensei's face frightened them. "Toshiro."

Sensei's voice startled him all of the sudden, and he could only hope not to hear the worst from him. He gulped, "Yes, Sensei?"

"You will be going into the forest with Natsume and Haruko tomorrow morning to search for the girl," he instructed them, making them all slightly anxious at the sudden turn of events. It turned out that even Sensei had given up on the search and came to the realisation that there was no point waiting any further. That thought alone was enough to send them shivers. Sensei continued in a serious tone, "You will come back in the evening and if you haven't found her, I'll look for her at night."

"Osu," they all replied, understanding the seriousness of the situation. They knew their Sensei was serious about this search mission, he wouldn't usually call them by their full names if he wasn't serious. Whenever he did decide to call them by their first name, it was more than enough to tell them that he meant business. After lunch, they continued their normal daily routine. They started training for a couple of hours, meditated for an hour and then all took a bath before they started to prepare for dinner. During the time where they prepared dinner, their Sensei would usually be mediating. According to him, it was important for _Nen_ control.

"Hey you two, would you be able to take over for me?" Toshiro asked the other two as he stopped dicing the onions. "I've got to do something real quick!"

It bothered Toshiro how they all had to continue going on with their lives knowing that there was a little girl who could potentially be dead inside that very forest. In fact, it disturbed him how calm Sensei and both of his fellow pupils were. Unlike him, they both were somehow able to put complete trust in Sensei, something Toshiro wasn't able to do.

"Where are you going?" Natsume questioned, knowing where he was going with all this. The strawberry blonde boy was was a couple of years younger than Toshiro; probably around the same age as Kurapika. His eyes were a hazel colour and stood out against his slightly long hair. Natsume was around Kurapika's height, making him shorter than the other two, but in comparison to Kurapika's thin build he was much leaner showing how much physical training he went through.

"Let him go Natsu!" Haruko interrupted Natsume's interrogation, seeing how nervous Toshiro had been the whole day. If going to the forest himself to take a quick peek was going to calm his nerves, it was better to just let him go ahead with it. Haruko was the oldest out of the trio, already being in his mid-twenties, and consequently also the wisest. His dark brown hair matched his almost black eyes and his tanned skin stood out from the trio. . "He's got other things he's worrying about."

"Fine, but you owe us a big one!" Natsume sighed. With that, knowing that their Sensei wouldn't open his eyes for a couple of more hours, Toshiro decided to walk down the mountain to the forest entrance marked with the white piece of cloth. Unfortunately for him, Himeko was still not there, but he decided to wait for an hour or two. As long as his Sensei didn't know about this it was fine. The sun was starting to set, and although it started to get quite late, something told Toshiro to keep waiting and hope for the best. But simply hoping for the young girl to return wasn't good enough, and knowing that Sensei was going to check up on them any time soon, he stood up to go back to the dojo. That was all the waiting he was prepared to do, and he was going to set off to go and find her in the forest the next morning along with everyone else in the dojo. But as soon as he was starting to head down the mountain, he suddenly felt an aura behind him. It was fairly weak; much weaker than his own but it was a sign of life.

With only little hope remaining, Toshiro turned around to see the little, beat up girl standing behind the fence.

"Sorry I'm late," she smiled, after finally making it back alive. "I kinda ended up getting lost for four days."

Toshiro didn't know how to feel at this moment. He was glad that she made it out of the forest but on the other hand he couldn't have imagined what she went through looking at all the cuts and bruises she got. What horrified him the most, was the large bite mark that covered the majority of her left leg, from her ankles to above her knees; what could have had such a large bite? While he was still staring at her, she climbed over the fence onto the other side and untied the white piece of cloth the mark the end of the challenge.

"That bite mark…" He was still blankly staring at it. "You met _them_."

"Them?"

That was when Himeko started to remember. After waking up from her little nap, she was tripped up by one of the trees. Himeko managed to free herself by breaking the roots and took her anger out on the tree by kicking it. Right then, the ravens in the forest started to caw and not too soon after, all kinds of other birds started to join in. Himeko stopped kicking the tree and looked up to see birds acting in terror. She then felt heavy footsteps approaching her from behind, but as soon as she looked behind, she was swung back. She flew back and stopped after she was hit her tree only to open her eyes to see the creature that had just attacked her.

It looked like a regular tiger, but it wasn't. This creature was a lot bigger, so big that it could just gulp up Himeko in without the need to chew her up into bite size pieces. The fur was a greyish, blue with dark grey stripes and of course, their fangs were bigger than those of any other carnivore she had previously seen. With those, one bite was more than enough to chew through anything.

The creature then approached towards her slowly as she got back up into fighting stance. After cautiously circling around her, it then jumped at her but this time Himeko was able to dodge with ease. There was no way she could hold back when fighting against this beast; it was either do or die.

She remembered back when she was fighting Dos during the Trick Tower when she was about to lose control until Gon stopped her. She was about to kill him with no remorse and if it wasn't for Gon, she couldn't think of what would have happened. It never occurred to her back then, or maybe she had just forgotten about it, but Himeko genetically wasn't a human any longer. Her genetics were altered and new genetic traits were added using the drug, and the effects caused her to become not a genetically engineered product. Seeing the Royal Beasts back at the side clan's mansion was just a reminder to show that she was no different from an animal. It made her wonder whether the human intelligence she had now would eventually start degrading over time and whether the still dormant animal instincts would eventually take over her.

An empty shell; if she were to turn out like that, she wouldn't be able to control herself anymore. She could have easily lost control of her mind and never turned back, going on an endless killing spree until someone put an end to her. Himeko never liked to show signs of fear, it made her look weak in front of others but she couldn't help but feel frightened by that thought alone. In reality, no matter how much she wanted to see her full potential, she just never could. She was too afraid of her own strength, wondering whether it came with a big downfall. The trauma from her past caused her to forget a lot of events that happened during the time she was being drugged, but she managed to remember all the horrible ways a lot of children died.

As she was deep in thoughts, the creature used its paws to attack her once again, swinging her back once more. _"I have to run!"_ She thought to herself. She got up and was ready to run in the opposite direction when suddenly, the roots of a tree grabbed hold of her leg. She struggled against it and used her hands to break it off, but it was too late. The tiger was now right in front of her, ready to deliver the finishing blow. It was raising one of it's front legs to hit her with full force, but it was stopped. The tiger started to back off and took a few steps back to see it's prey. Himeko was standing up straight, waiting for the it to attack. Once again, the tiger decided to attack once more but Himeko dodged and attacked this time, giving it a blow straight to its face. She then kicked the tiger in the face. It received the blow but caught her leg with its fangs refusing to let her go. She struggled, only making the beast bite down harder but after countless attempts of fighting back it eventually let her go, leaving her with a bite mark across her left leg.

Himeko continued to fight it off whenever it attacked, but eventually she realised that it was surprisingly starting to get a little fun. She found it amusing how the tiger kept getting up after getting beaten by her. The more she beat it, the louder it whimpered in the puddle of its own blood. The vibrant colour was starting to thrill her; she wasn't fighting to defend herself anymore. Rather, she wanted to shred the beast into pieces, pouring its blood all over the floor. Wanting to stay out of trouble all her life, this feeling was completely foreign to her.

The beast kept getting up every time it was beaten back down onto the floor until at some point, it grew too weak to get back up again. Himeko quietly watched the gigantic beast whimper in pain. Hearing its cry, a group of the same beast arrived to the place in order to protect the one that was fighting Himeko. Although only some of them attacked her, she continued fighting all of the beasts in the group. She let out a loud scream, which echoed through the whole forest to mark her victory, but this caused the beasts to back off. One by one, they retreated from the scene and Himeko just continued to follow them back into their territory wanting to settle the score once and for all.

Their hide out was near a large cave deep in the middle of the woods; a part of the forest she still hadn't explored. She started to count the number she was up against, until she noticed little cubs the grown beasts were taking care of. They looked like new borns, and their affection for one another was enough to make her snap out of it.

At that moment, those creatures seemed a lot more human than her. She left their territory before she was spotted and started heading back, wanting to forget about everything that had just happened.

...

"I came across a group of giant tigers," she began to explain to Toshiro who looked bewildered seeing the large scar on her leg.

"Let's go back to the dojo," he instructed her quietly before continuing to head down the mountain, "we'll get those wounds treated at the dojo." Himeko decided to stick quite close to him as he was a fast walker, but she noticed how antisocial he was all of the sudden. He seemed a lot more talkative when they first met, but he didn't seem particularly curious of what happened back in the forest during her week of absence. It didn't look like he didn't care, it was more like Toshiro being a very quiet person. Being quiet herself, Himeko didn't mind the silence on the way back to the dojo. She'd rather walk in silence instead of being bombarded by obvious questions.

When they arrived at the dojo, they climbed the long set of steep stairs and at the very top, they found Sensei waiting for them already. He was displeased by the fact that his own student disobeyed his orders, "Toshiro, I didn't give you permission to leave the dojo!" he scolded him while the other two boys were guiltily standing behind him. But when he saw Himeko, his expression immediately softened. He couldn't be mad anymore, what mattered most now was treating her wounds. "Toshi, go and set her a bath," he sighed before giving out a set of instructions, "Haru, go and continue making dinner. Make sure that you make enough for another person. Natsu, go and find a spare set of clothes."

"Osu!" His three pupils left to do what their Sensei has ordered them to do. Himeko watched them scatter around the dojo to do their assigned tasks being left behind with Sensei. It had been much longer than a week; around a week and a half, so she wasn't sure whether Sensei was just doing this because he felt bad for sending her in all alone. He might not choose to accept her as his student anymore, so she just hoped for the best.

"Did I pass?" she chose to ask the one million dollar question. "I kinda got lost in the forest so I couldn't make it out earlier, so I apologise for making you all worry."

"You did worry us, especially Toshi!" He started off. "The fact that you exceeded the time limit doesn't mean anything. You simply managed to survive in the forest for longer than the given period of time."

"So that means-"

"Yes, I'll take you in," Sensei said before she could even start to celebrate.

Himeko tried to contain her excitement and bowed, "thank you!" If this was someone else, they might have not allowed her to join the dojo after not coming back at the assigned time. Sensei seemed laid back about her delay, as if he didn't really care too much about the challenge he gave her. He just wanted to test her abilities, that was all.

"Go and take a bath," he told her, "Natsu will give you a set of clothes to change into and after the bath, ask Toshi to treat your wounds. We will meet again during dinner."

"Osu!"

After Sensei was gone, Himeko headed towards the direction Toshiro headed earlier, and as she got closer, she saw him calling her from the distance. The dojo was fairly large for only four people, and she was surprised to see only three students. She had expected Sensei to have at least ten considering how important this dojo must be to Kioto. Toshiro led the way towards the bathroom, and Himeko had noticed how most rooms were just empty. Nonetheless, the building was fairly cozy and the traditional setting caught her liking. No matter how posh a hotel was, Himeko felt more comfortable in a more traditional japanese house in contrast to a western one mainly because that was how she grew up.

As they got to the bathroom, she saw the tub already filled with warm water. It wasn't the biggest bathroom she had seen, but it was better than what she had expected. Toshiro also handed her a spare change of clothes. It consisted of what traditional japanese shrine maidens would wear; a pair of red hakama and a white haori.

"Sorry, Sensei doesn't really like anyone wearing western clothes in the dojo," he explained. It made sense, Toshiro, Natsume and Haruko wore a dark blue hakama and a white haori all this time. Sensei too wore a hakama in dark grey and a white haori. He left after giving her the required things, and closed the door so she could have her privacy. Himeko briefly started at the clothes she was supposed to change into, and although the servants back at her estate wore something similar, she had never actually worn one before. She never really saw anyone put it on, so she just had to try her best to remember what it was supposed to look like.

She then took a bath and changed into the clothes that were given to her. Her dress was pretty much not wearable anymore. It had gone through a lot and a simple wash wouldn't be able to clean it properly, so it was finally time to let go of it. When she stepped out, Toshiro offered to treat her wounds for her. Majority of her wounds weren't even that bad and she knew they would heal quite quickly. The only major wound was the bite mark on her leg which he bandaged for her.

"There you go, you are good to go now!" He said once he finished treating her.

"Thank you."

"There's no need to thank me," he said. "Come on, let's go and join the others for dinner. If we don't hurry, they won't leave us any food. This place is basically survival of the fittest." After giving him a slightly serious warning about the nature of the dojo, he took her back to the dining room where everyone else was already waiting for them so they could start eating. Himeko followed Toshiro in and sat down on the empty space beside Toshiro, feeling pretty awkward to sit amongst people she hasn't met before. It reminded her of the time when she first met Gon and the others, it took her some time to get used to them too.

"Let me introduce her," Sensei started off. "This is Himeko, she will be living with us."

It was a simple introduction, and it wasn't too far off from the truth. Himeko considered correcting him by telling him he was supposed to train her from now on and that she wasn't just there to eat and sleep. Nonetheless, Haruko and Natsume took a good look at the newcomer, making her feel uncomfortable with all the attention she was getting all of the sudden.

"I asked for a little sister last Christmas," Haruko remembered before turning to his mentor, "Is she a late Christmas present?"

Himeko was slightly dumbfounded by the wild question asked by the oldest out of the students, and Toshiro could only sit there mentally face-palming, not wanting to be there anymore. However, she didn't really expect Sensei to have his own sense of humour and agree with Haruko's request so easily.

"Yeah, sure." Sensei agreed which made Haruko's face brighten up and look back at her, like a little girl looking at a brand new doll. Himeko never really trusted people, and after being to the side clan she had more of a reason not to trust people. She was quite vary of these people as they were still strangers, but she couldn't deny that this was the only way for her to become stronger. Although Haruko seemed a little crazy now, she could tell that he wasn't a bad person. He was just a little strange, that's all!

"Ehh, not fair Sensei!" Natsume immediately found himself protesting. "I asked for a girlfriend last Christmas, but you gave me a lump of coal instead. Why does he get his present?"

"She is a girl, so just become friends with her," Sensei told him. "Then she will technically be your _girl_ friend."

But hearing how easily Sensei agreed to Natsume's request, Haruko found himself objecting with Sensei's decision, "I won't let my sister date that sadist!"

Sensei remained quiet as an argument broke out between the youngest and oldest, and Toshiro could just feel ashamed to have befriended these two. Himeko on the other hand continued to be awestruck by the craziness she encountered. She thought people at the Hunter exam had a couple of screws lose, but there were crazy people everywhere. _"I came to train but ended up as a late Christmas present…"_ she thought.

Toshiro interrupted with a fake cough, feeling second hand embarrassment on his friends' behalf. Not just that, he noticed that Himeko didn't really like all the attention she was getting all of the sudden, especially seeing how she was tossed around and fought over as if she were a piece of meat. "She's right here, don't make her run away!"

_"Thank you, at least there is someone sane amongst them!"_ She thought, confirming that at least one of these people was sane.

"Himeko, why don't you introduce yourself properly." Sensei suggested, and this was enough to silence Natsume and Haruko who wanted to know more about the newcomer. It wasn't too often for Sensei to acknowledge and take in a new student under his wing, and currently only the three of them were students at the dojo until Himeko joined them.

"Yes, I will." She nodded, and confidently looked at everyone sitting around the table. "I'm Himeko, but you can just call me Kou. I'm twelve years old and I'm a Hunter."

"Any hobbies?" Natsume asked.

"I like to read, I guess." She replied, trying to think of anything else she could mention to make her sound not as bland. "I don't really do much to be honest."

"I'm Natsume," he introduced himself, smiling gently. "But you can just call me Natsu. I'm the youngest here, or I was the youngest until today. I'm seventeen and a Contract Hunter." Natsume reminded her a little of Kurapika at first, she didn't really know why though. It could just be the similar hair style and large doe like eyes they both shared, and they were both quite handsome too. They were both handsome too. Kurapika was quite a lot saner than Natsume and it didn't take her long to realise that, but since he reminded her of Kurapika she felt much more comfortable around him. She then turned to Haruko as he was about to introduce himself.

"My name's Haruko, but you can just call me _onii-tan,_" he grinned widely before he was hit by Toshiro who sat right next to himself. He decided to start again with a more monotonous voice. "I'm Haruko, you can call me Haru. I'm twenty-four years old and also a Contract Hunter."

"You probably already know my name," Toshiro began, "I'm Toshiro, twenty, and a Contract Hunter."

"Just don't call him Toshiro, stick to Toshi!" Natsume commented. "He tries to act cool, but he's not cool at all."

"Why you little…" Toshiro went to hit Natsume but he dodged with ease. In contrast to the calm and collect Toshiro she had seen until now, Natsume managed to get him worked up. He was a lot more bad tempered than she had initially guessed based on first impressions.

"See, he's got a pretty bad temper too."

It looked like it was going to be hard to get used to everyone at first, but Himeko was able to judge that none of the boys or Sensei were bad people. They were quite over the top, but it was all to make her feel more comfortable around them and she had quickly taken a liking to the place. Kioto was very traditional just like her hometown Otaka. In contrast to the magnificent castles and mansions in Otaka, Kioto was packed with shrines but both places had this elegant beauty to them. The traditional dojo made her feel welcome, and it felt almost like a much smaller version of her house back in Otaka. "Well, it's nice to meet you all," she smiled quite awkwardly, _"I guess..."_

"Her smile is so bright, it's brightening up this hell hole full of filthy me!" Haruko overreacted upon seeing her smile and covered his eyes, pretending to be blinded by it. Himeko couldn't help but start to feel a little annoyed by how much they all overreacted, but then again it was all pretty amusing, especially since they managed to find a reason to argue every minute.

"Oi, you do realise that you're probably the filthiest out of us three, right?" Toshiro pointed out, irritated at the blunt insult made by his elder. Haruko was quick to protest the accusations of being the filthiest by quickly turning that title in Natsume's direction, only for Natsume to use Toshiro's own insult against him.

"Silence!" Their Sensei interrupted. "Show some respect to the food. Eat in silence and then talk." Hearing his loud, demanding voice, they ended up shutting up for the sake of eating. It was Himeko's first good meal in a while although it only consisted of a fish, some miso soup and a bowl of rice, but it was a lot better than what she had to eat back in the forest. That aside, she never really expected luxury in a place like this in the first place. Sensei's dojo was on the mountain, isolated from civilisation. They had to travel miles to reach the nearest supermarket so she wasn't really surprised to see such a simple meal being served. In addition to that, she remember Toshiro telling her about Sensei's minimalistic lifestyle, including the clothes they wore, the very little furniture and technology they had and the food they ate. Technology never really played a big part in her life anyway, whether it was back in the Inoue clan or even outside the clan, so that wasn't too hard to get used to either way. In a way, she felt more at peace knowing how simple his lifestyle was.

After eating their meal, everyone took turns asking her about the events and challenges she had to face in the forest. Natsume revealed that all three of them were sent to the forest too as an initial test to see how worthy they were to be trained by him, so they could all recall the first time being thrown into the forest. The trees, strange animals and poisonous plants were all too familiar to them, especially since they had to go to the forest quite frequently to clean Sensei's family shrine each month. However, they were surprised to hear that she came across the white tigers on her first trip around the forest.

"So, you met the rulers of the forest?" Natsume asked curiously. Although he had been in the forest quite a number of times, he could only recall running into one of the tigers once. Sensei would always warn him not to get too close to them since they were quite delicate beasts despite their ferocious looks.

"Rulers?"

"The giant tigers are like the rulers of the forest," Haruko continued to explain where Natsume left off. "That's probably why the birds made such a big ruckus when they came out to greet you."

"You should be glad you survived though," Toshiro added, "It's mating season right now and they act a lot more vicious during this time."

_"That explains why they attacked me all of the sudden."_ Himeko thought, thinking back to what happened back then. No matter how large and dangerous the three boys made them seem, Sensei's description was more accurate. Despite their gigantic size compared to the little Himeko, they were quite delicate indeed. Their natural instincts to protect the females of the group along with their young made her feel like the monster in comparison. It made her feel more afraid of herself, she didn't want to fight anymore but at the same time, she wanted to learn how to control her own strength. A ferocious, blood-thirsty beast made her feel like the monster, but that made her question what kind of DNA was injected into her, and what beast could scare a carnivore ten times her size.

"You said you passed this years Hunter exam," Natsume changed the topic as soon as she started looking uncomfortable, "how did it go? How were the examiners and tasks this year?"

Noticing that Natsume changed the subject to something better, Himeko started to tell them about the trials she had to go through to obtain her license. Hearing the tasks, the trio couldn't help but start reminiscing about the time they went to get their licenses. It made them more curious about all the examiners, and it was revealed that the trio got their licenses four years ago with Netero being the examiners for their last challenge too that year. They continued to ask about the Hunter exam, and argued about how much more challenging it was in the previous years. Sensei on the other hand told them about how much harder the exams were when he took them, having some people pass with only one leg remaining. Of course the system had changed a lot since then, and back then applicants were required to be much stronger than they were right now. Himeko then continued telling them about the kinds of people she met, a lot being very weird. The name Tonpa seemed to have rung a bell too, especially since Toshiro looked very pissed off at the mention of his name. However, her tales of all the weird people she had met during her journey didn't surprise them at all, apparently it was mostly weirdos that took the exam. To take the Hunter exam you had to be ready to give up your life if you failed; you had to be a real idiot to do something like that.

"Where are you from, Kou?" Natsume continued to ask questions, wanting her to warm up to them.

"I'm from Otaka."

"That's quite far," Haruko pointed out, "what about your parents?"

"They died a few years ago," she confessed. She wasn't revealing too much about herself, so she didn't feel too uncomfortable telling them little pieces of information about herself.

Haruko lowered his head upon hearing this, "I'm really sorry."

"No, it's okay." She gave them a small smile, before she continued telling them about herself a little. "Besides, my brother went missing, so he might be alive. I'm actually looking for him." Himeko continued to talk to them, trying not to spill everything. She only told them about her hometown, but her family background and history she tried keeping to herself, especially since the side clan was situated deep inside the neighbouring forest. She kept a lot of her answer vague, but tried not to make her answers seem too fabricated. After all, she wanted to earn their trust first, and judging from their expression she was doing a pretty good job.

Once it was quite dark, Sensei interrupted their conversation. "Okay, enough talking," he said before he started to remind them of their real purpose at the dojo, "we can continue this tomorrow. You all have to wake up early tomorrow to start training." The life at the dojo consisted pretty much of just training, but over the past few days no one was too focused on it due to Himeko's disappearance. Their schedules were usually tightly packed with all kinds of training, from both physical to mental, and other than that they just cleaned the dojo and did all other basic things such as cooking, eating, et cetera.

"So, you'll start training me tomorrow?" She asked, still questioning whether he was serious about helping her become stronger until it was time to leave for Yorkshin.

"No, I won't train you!" He said, and his statement seemed to have confused not just Himeko, but everyone else sitting around the dinner table. Sensei then gestured towards his students, "These three will."

"Your students will?" She questioned, feeling slightly betrayed. All this time she blindly accepted to do his challenge so he could train her, but now he didn't want to train her anymore. "Didn't you say you'd train me yourself?"

"Don't take these three so lightly," Sensei interrupted her. He took great pride in the three boys he had trained over the past few years, and honestly although he never wanted to teach students at the dojo and die quietly in peace, he was somehow glad to have trained them. "I've trained them for the last four years, and they are my only students. I've selected them myself and I've trained them myself, so they are strong!" He was confident in their skills, and looked a lot more confident than his students combined.

"We will be teaching her?" Natsume asked, wondering whether their teacher was trying to make a joke.

"Yes," Sensei answered, before explaining everyone's separate tasks. "Natsume, you will be training her in hand to hand combat. Haruko, you will help her with her control and Toshi, will teach her _Nen_."

"Osu!" They all agreed in-sync, not knowing what his plan was. Sensei was a lot stronger than them, and his training methods were extremely useful. In comparison to him, the three boys had no experience in teaching so they looked a lot more nervous than their new student. According to him, Himeko didn't even know the basics, so they didn't know how they were supposed to teach her. Sensei on the other hand knew that this experience wasn't just going to aid Himeko, but it was also going to benefit her teachers.

Sensei then stood up from the table, "Go to sleep now," he ordered, "These three won't go easy on you just because you're a sweet little girl." His warning wasn't supposed to sound threatening, yet Himeko couldn't help but gulp at the sound of his intimidating voice. "Haruko, show her to her room."

"Osu!" With that, everyone excused themselves from the table and Haruko showed her to her room. Her room was quite close to theirs, just in case she needed something at night. It was also one of the cleanest rooms available at that moment as most rooms were used to store unwanted things Sensei didn't need, but didn't want to throw away either. He opened the door, and inside she found her rucksack safely placed in a corner already. Not only that, there was also a futon laid out for her to sleep in, and also a set of clothes to sleep in. The room was fairly small and simple, with just a oak table and a futon along with a few wardrobes. It was much better than what she usually got before she became a Hunter, so she was pretty satisfied with it.

"You'll be staying here," Haruko showed her inside. "Please don't be afraid to ask me if you need anything."

"Thank you, Haruko-sensei," she thanked him politely, knowing that he wasn't just a senior student at the dojo, but also her teacher.

"Just call me Haru, there's no need to be so formal." he said before his face brightened up at the thought of an idea. "Or you can call me onii-ta-"

"I'll stick with Haru." She interrupted him before he could manage to finish his sentence, making him frown in disappointment.

Nonetheless, Haruko sighed before waiting for her to tuck into her blankets so he could switched of the lights. "Good night," he smiled before warning her about Sensei's strict dojo rules, "Make sure not to oversleep, Sensei usually doesn't like it."

"Okay!" Hearing her response, Haruko switched off the lights, slid the door closed and walked away. Himeko waited for his footsteps to completely disappear before closing her eyes and falling asleep almost immediately. The past couple of days had been pretty exhausting, and although she did manage to get some sleep here and there, she also had to stay alert just in case anything attacked her in her sleep. Being inside a safe building with four very strong men somehow took all her worries away and she could finally get some sleep after not just the forest experience, but it was also the first time she was able to get a good night's sleep since the start of the Hunter exam.

It was a few minutes past midnight now and Himeko woke up realising that she needed to use the toilet. _"I forgot to ask them where the toilet is,"_ she thought, before getting out of her blanket and walking out into the hallway. Haruko told her where their room was incase she needed anything, so she headed straight towards their room. Luckily, their lights were still switched on which meant that they were probably still awake. "Excuse me, I'm coming in!" she said before sliding the door open. As she opened the door, she saw the three boys still awake, shirtless. Her eyes travelled to their waists, and upon seeing the mark engraved on all three of their waists, she froze. _Deja vu_.

Hearing their door slide open, the three boys turned towards the door to see the young girl frozen stiff at the door, her eyes couldn't avert from the markings on their waists. "You guys are..."

She managed to mutter out a few words, but seeing how surprised, yet disturbed she was, Haruko interrupted her. "I guess we were found out earlier than we expected," he sighed feeling slightly guilty about the sudden change in plans. "Don't worry, we know that we've got some explaining to do."

* * *

**A/n -** Yay, new characters ^^ Also, nen chapter will be up next. Any guesses on what her nen type is? P.s - sorry about all these cliffhangers lately, it just seems to be a good point to cut off the chapter.

Also, thanks for all the support, it really makes my day ^^


	18. Nen

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 17**

_Nen_

_..._

"We'll explain ourselves," Toshiro repeated what Haruko just said in a more serious tone. Compared to his elder, he seemed a little more annoyed than guilty. "Just close the door for now so we can all put a shirt on."

"Ah, sorry!" Upon realising that she was staring at them for too long, she immediately closed the door again so the trio could put on a shirt to cover the oddly familiar symbol on their waists. It was awfully quiet outside, and with only the sound of grasshoppers chirping in the dew green grass, Himeko was hit with the nauseous feeling of _deja vu_. She lifted up her own shirt to check the symbol burnt onto her own waist to confirm that it was indeed the exact same. Toshiro, Haruko and Natsume each had the same marking on their waists as her; the mark that labelled the Royal Beasts, the label that identified the Royal Beasts from the rest of the world, the identity that would stick with them for the rest of their lives. It meant that they were the same as her, they were all once test subjects, but it also meant that these three knew that she really was one of them and hid the truth from them. Though she did pretty much the same thing, she couldn't help but feel angered by that.

After a while, Himeko heard footsteps approach the door and moved away. The door was opened by Toshiro, "You can come in now," he said before letting her in and closing the door again. As she stepped in, she was already greeted with two guilty faces; one guiltier than the other. Toshiro walked past her and sat down in his original seat, so she decided to sit down in an empty spot in front of all three of them. To be honest, Himeko wasn't as angry as she was a couple of minutes ago. She couldn't exactly hold it against them; they didn't mean her any harm after all, but she still didn't consider that as an excuse either.

"You see, we never really wanted to hide anything from you," Natsume tried to cheer her up while trying to prove his innocence at the same time. "We wanted to tell you later on so you don't get overwhelmed by it all on your first day." She knew that he did have a fair point; she was still quite young so they could have just been worried that she wouldn't be able to digest everything all at once. But there was one thing Himeko realised right after joining the Hunter exam. She lived in a crazy world with people killing others for pleasure and still easily getting away with it, people living not on food, air and water, but the plain objective to seek vengeance, people purposely painting themselves as sleazy, money hungry freaks in order not to get trampled on by society. Parents raised their children to carry on their bad deeds, others abandoned their children to carefreely travel the world; and none of them even considered how their children felt.

Living in the Inoue clan were definitely not the most interesting years of her life; they were strict, manipulative and almost obsessive, forcing their own beliefs onto the younger generations. But it only took a few days in the outside world for her to understand how much safer and comfortable her life truly was in the clan. Whist there was always a constant mental strain to be the best in her family, there was a huge strain on her body to earn enough of this so called _money_ people were going crazy for. Society pretty much lived on money, whether it was to earn someone's respect or simply to have a roof over your head, and for a smart child like Himeko it wasn't rocket science to figure out. As stated by Leorio many times, one of the main advantages of the Hunter license was the luxury that came with it. No matter how dumb his reason was back then, neither Kurapika nor Himeko could ever argue against his point that society was solely driven by money. But whilst getting this so called key to luxury, she quickly found out that there were certain people that didn't give a damn about money and lived purely for other reasons in live; some good, and others bad.

The Hunter exam candidates were purely just an example of all the twisted minds that lived in this big world, and Himeko figured that every person she had encountered was just the tip of the iceberg. Mentally, she had prepared herself to meet all kinds of sick and twisted beings that had the guts to call themselves humans, so although the fact that these three boys were indeed one of the Royal Beasts was a little overwhelming at first, she didn't feel all that surprised when thinking calmly about it. She wasn't the only one who got away; in fact it was thanks to someone else that she managed to escape and get away safely. It wasn't just her who escaped, so while vaguely trying to remember what really happened back then she could remember a handful of children getting away with her. If the frail and naive Himeko from back then was able to survive for this long, then pretty much anyone could do the same.

"No it's okay, I understand why you might have decided not to mention this," she said in a calm tone, and hearing her voice managed to relax the three sitting in front of her. Being angry at them in this situation was expected, but seeing how well she handled the situation managed to calm their nerves. "I usually wouldn't care unless it's something concerning me, so I do want you all to tell me the truth now."

Natsume and Toshiro looked at Haruko who just sighed. In all honestly, he felt like she was handling everything a lot more maturely than they first thought she would. It hadn't even been four years since then, and although she didn't look very different from how they remembered, her personality became unrecognisable; almost as if a complete stranger was disguised as her. She was a lot more confident, well-spoken, determined and most importantly, they couldn't believe how independent she had become. They girl that stuck in their memories was shy, frail and she couldn't stand up for herself; and the thought of her being alone in this cold world haunted the three all this time.

"Toshiro knew who you were when he found you in the forest," Haruko began to fully explain every detail they left out earlier during dinner. "He told Sensei when they found you, and at first he wasn't too wasn't thrilled at the idea of having another one of us join the dojo, but at the same time it was against his nature to turn away someone who was desperate for help."

Before Himeko could even ask the question, Toshiro began to answer it, "The test was to see how good you could control yourself," he informed her. "The drug that modified us doesn't just increase our strength, it does a lot more than that. It could potentially alter our natural instincts and emotions as Royal Beasts were originally meant to be mindless killing machines. We were modified to kill ruthlessly, without hesitating so naturally our senses were also modified to aid us with it. With enough training our sense of smell, hearing and sight could be improved above the normal human level, but we still don't know what kind of dangers the drug could impose."

"The fact that you survived a week in a forest where all odds were against you means that you at least have the basic control over yourself," Natsume continued where Toshiro left off. "The experience would have triggered your animal instincts to take control over your own. To be honest, it was a fifty-fifty gamble; you either win or lose."

"So I guess I won."

"Yes, you did," Natsume stated, "If you lost, you wouldn't be sitting her with us. If you lost your mind you would have gone on a full blown killing spree, and the only way we could have put an end to it was by killing you." Hearing this, Himeko gulped. Somehow she was able to guess the turnout of what would have happened if she did end up losing her mind back in the forest, or even back in Trick Tower. If something like that were to happen, there was no way for her to gain her senses back. She was no toys with a switch on the back of her head, someone would have had to end her life, just like putting a dangerous dog to sleep to stop it from causing any more damage. But Natsume's serious tone was what scared her the most.

"But how did you know who I was?" She asked out of pure curiosity. There were hundreds of children just like her who were part of the research, and she didn't particularly stand out either for anyone to remember her after all these years. "I don't remember seeing you all before."

"We were all together in the same room back then," Natsume answered her question. "We were all in section H, I remember being H210. Including us four there were twelve people in our room, I remember you were the last one to join, and you were also the youngest one out of us all.

"In other words, we were all modified in the same year," Toshiro added, "And we also were some of the other escapees."

Despite their attempt to job her memory, Himeko could vaguely remember anything from back then. Section H was a very familiar term she remembered hearing quite a lot, and she remembered being in a room with other children that shared the same faith as her, but those were only a couple of the very few things she could recall. Names or others and even faces she seemed to have forgotten from back then; she simply didn't want to remember being there in the first place, so the first thing she wanted to forget was everyone that was associated with that event. "Sorry, but I don't remember," she confessed bluntly, but the boys weren't too surprised by her response.

"We don't blame you for that," Toshiro reassured her, "You were quite young back then, and you probably didn't know how to deal with the trauma. Wanting to avoid and forget everyone and everything that reminds you of a traumatic experience is only natural, so we understand how you might feel. The fact that the three of us were never really alone all this time helped us a lot to get over it, but you it must have been different."

"Haruko here was the so called ring leader of the escape mission," Natsume continued to explained. "He was one of the oldest back then and planned the escape. Unfortunately, only a few of us managed to escape, but we were happy to see that you managed to escape too."

"You were really quiet, you must have been scared, huh?" Haruko said remembering the eight year old Himeko. She wasn't very expressive back then, purely because of her lack in trust towards everyone, but they couldn't blame her either. They were never told where she was from, or what happened to her parents before she ended up with them, but they knew for sure that seeing humans act so barbaric must have led her to distrust everyone around her. Putting that aside, she was also quite young and never expected something like that to happen to her.

"I was really scared, hearing screams coming from every direction, and seeing the number of children decrease by the day. It was frightening," she confessed. Although her old habit of distrusting everyone but herself still stuck around with her, she had learned how to speak with all kinds of people. These three were no where as bad as some people out on the streets, and although she couldn't fully trust them just yet, she did want to trust them. But at the same time, she knew very well that they had to gradually earn her trust little by little, and although that would take time, she still didn't mind. "You never knew what to expect next, at the end of the day, we were all just waiting to die."

Haruko continued to tell Himeko about their origin, and it turned out that they all ended up together for the same reason. The three boys were orphans who had lost their parents at a young age, and having no one to care about what happened to them, many orphans were sold into these kinds of experiments. Ironically, Himeko too ended up with no one and no where left to go, so she ended up with them. Haruko didn't want to reveal a lot about their own past, simply because it bothered them looking back at it. Whilst he lost his parents in an accident, Natsume and Toshiro's parents were murdered. Although they all shared the same emptiness in the past, he didn't want Natsume and Toshiro to go down the wrong path and kill themselves in the process. They managed to get over it and tried to live their lives putting their pasts behind them, and Haruko didn't want that to change. As far as he was concerned, Natsume and Toshiro were his younger brothers so he felt the responsibility to watch after them.

Since it was Haruko talking, she could feel how genuine his story was. It hadn't been too long since she met them, but all three of them were pretty easy to read. Toshiro was too afraid to express himself with emotions, while Natsume was just very bad at it. Haruko knew how to calm someone down, and with two younger boys under his wings she wasn't too surprised by that. He knew how to treat a younger sibling, and he treated her just like he would treat a younger sister. He was looking out for her now, and they looked out for her back then too, so Himeko couldn't help but feel very grateful. It was thanks to them that she was alive right now, and that fact alone made her want to trust these three.

She decided to tell them of her own origins, this time not wanting to miss out any details. She held the fact that she was from the Inoue clan confidential, for both her own safety and her clan's safety Her clan might be dead, but what they left behind wasn't just a couple of gold coins. Money didn't motivate these three; if it did then they wouldn't be staying at such a small, old fashioned dojo in the first place. Being from an homogenous clan always made it hard for her to talk to people who looked completely different to her. People tend to say that opposites attract, but that wasn't exactly true. In fact, you're more likely to get attracted to someone similar to you, may it be looks or personality purely because you are more likely to trust them since you trust yourself. Himeko was an extreme case of this, and having been exposed to people who had black hair all her life, including all the servants at her estate, she found it hard to talk to anyone without black coloured hair. Seeing so many people with different external appearances gave her a cultural shock to say the least, and thinking back she might have even come off as arrogant and rude when in reality she was just scared of anyone who didn't look just like her. Despite that, these three were still worried about her.

"You've got quite a lot of drama going on!" Natsume commented, hearing her encounter with the Inoue side clan. They were well aware of the fact that there was a giant wall in the middle of the forest, and they had always assumed that the people on the other side weren't exactly friendly which turned out to be true. "Well, if you need to become stronger to find your brother and get revenge, then you have come to the right place!" The three warmly smiled at her; it was an official welcome to the family.

"Well, it's past your bedtime now!" Toshiro interrupted the heartwarming moment inside the room. "You have to wake up early tomorrow. Everyone was nice to you today since it's your first day here, but tomorrow these bastards are probably going to show their true faces." She was quite confused at what he meant by that, especially after everyone treated her so well. At first she concluded that Toshiro was just over exaggerating things, but hearing how Haruko was actually agreeing with him caused her to believe that this place was no joke.

"He's right, this place is basically survival of the fittest. First comes, first serves!" Haruko added in a warning tone. All three of them seemed to be warning her of what was to come in the morning, and it caused her to imagine all kinds of torturous training methods that they were going to use on her. But then again, she didn't exactly come there to play around either, so in a way this would help her to become stronger. Himeko stood up and prepared to head back to her room before she remembered why she came in the first place.

She turned back to them, "Can I ask another question?"

"If it's about training, save it for tomorrow!" Toshiro answered, preparing to go to sleep himself. The sooner she leaves the sooner they could all go to bed after all.

"No, it's not about training," she shook her head, and hearing this everyone anticipated for a much more serious question, possibly relating to the drug they were all given. "Where's the toilet?"

The random question caught the boys off guard. "Down the hallway, last door." Toshiro answered after a brief moment of silence. She thanked them before she went off to the toilet thinking of the many things she could learn until September. She could finally learn to use her powers to their full potential and a wide grin appeared on her face after imagining how blown away her friends would be after seeing how much stronger she had gotten. After using the toilet, Himeko finally called it a day and went to bed.

Peacefully catching up on all that sleep she missed, Himeko lost track of time. It was already ten past five in the morning, and while she was still sleeping, everyone else was already awake and getting on with the day. "Wake up, child!" A loud scream filled the hallway, and hearing this Himeko instinctively shot up from her slumber and ran out of the room onto the hallway where the owner of the voice was standing. "You're the last one to wake up, clean the dojo!"

Himeko was dumbstruck by Sensei's order. She spent a moment to stare at the sun that was still not even up yet, concluding that it probably wasn't even six o'clock yet. Being curious at what time it was, Himeko walked back into her room and picked up her phone from under her pillow to check the time. _"It's only five,"_ she thought, wondering why Sensei was making such a big deal out of it.

While she was staring at her phone, Sensei was able to sneak in from behind and snatch her phone away. "I will be confiscating this!"

"I was just checking the time!" She tried to protest, but her efforts were in vain.

"Silence!" He shouted, making her listen to him obediently. "These new technical objects are no good for you children. They only make you lazier than you are already, getting spoon fed from your chair. Now change your clothes and start cleaning the dojo." But before he left, he inspected her room to find that there wasn't much wrong with it except for her futon. "Maybe sure to fold your futon too."

She obediently listened to his orders, "Osu!" she replied and watched her mentor walk back out of the room. Once he was gone, she let out a sigh of relief and relaxed her shoulders before turning to her messy futon. She didn't exactly expect him to be this strict, but then again Toshiro did warn her that Sensei wasn't too fond of technology. But then again, she did come to train so she couldn't hold it against him for treating her like a student. After folding her futon and placing it back into the wardrobe, she took out her toothbrush and toothpaste before heading to the bathroom. After brushing her teeth and washing her face, she returned and changed into the simple training clothes she was given the previous day. They were a little loose on her since they belonged to Natsume when he first joined the dojo at the age of twelve, but it was a lot better and more comfortable to train in than what she would usually wear.

When she left her room, Sensei was already waiting for her with a bucket and a washcloth and handed them to her. "Fill it up and get moving!" He ordered, and Himeko immediately ran to the bathroom to fill the bucket up with lukewarm water before she started to clean the long hallways. She ran back and forth, cleaning the hallway. After the hallway was done, she had to clean all the individual rooms, including all the large training rooms.

It was now seven am. Himeko woke up two hours ago and she was already drained after cleaning the entire building with a small piece of cloth. Thinking that things couldn't get any worse, she walked into the dining room where she found that everyone started eating breakfast without her. What made things worse, there was hardly anything left for her to eat.

"What are you looking at, eat before we finish everything." Sensei ordered, and hearing this she immediately sat down at the table and scooped herself a bowl of rice, before getting herself a grilled fish. There was also a bowl of miso soup for her. Himeko only knew now that second servings only went to people who ate the fastest.

"Maybe we should have told her yesterday," Haruko whispered over to the other two while watching her eat in silence. He felt a little guilty for not telling her that this place would be ruthless when it came to these things. He turned to Toshiro and Natsume who were both pigging out on their breakfast, not showing any mercy on the newcomer. "Don't you two have any mercy?" He scolded the pair.

"Survival of the fittest, bitches!" Natsume mumbled incoherently with a mouth full of rice.

"All men for themselves!" Toshiro added, helping himself to another bowl of rice. "Her fault for not eating fast enough, we can't slow down for her sake!"

He sighed at their stubborn responses before giving Himeko another glance. She was doing her best to match their speed in eating, trying hard not to choke, and it made him smile at her determination. She was obviously taking her training and stay at the dojo seriously, but at the same time she didn't want to lose to anyone there. Seeing this, Haruko continued eating, trying to slow down and discretely save her the last serving of rice. After they finished eating, they soon left one by one, and at the end Himeko was the only one remaining behind.

"You're last, wash the dishes before you leave." Sensei ordered before leaving the room. Once she was done eating, she collected all the dishes before heading to the sink. She also noticed how the boys have piled up the dirty cooking pots in the sink. She let out a deep sigh before looking around the sink for a sponge and some soap. After pouring some of the dish soap onto the sponge, she started to clean the used pots before moving on to the dishes, cups and bowls. She then proceeded to use a cloth to dry the dishes before putting them away in their designated places.

"It's time to train!" She heard a voice waiting for her outside the kitchen. After putting away the last cup, she stepped out of the kitchen to find the three boys already waiting for her. "Let's head to the training room!" Haruko lead the way and the other two followed closely behind him down the hallway. Himeko decided to follow the three to one of the few training rooms in the dojo to officially begin her training. Though she was a little nervous, it was also quite exciting for her. She never had a proper teacher to train her in martial arts before, so she knew that this experience was going to make her a whole lot stronger; she might even turn out to become the strongest out of her group of friends. It really did boost her ego imagining all the cool moves she could learn and show off to impress her friends when they met back up in September, but her fantasies were destroyed when Toshiro pulled out a massive whiteboard before looking around for a couple of whiteboard pens.

"Sit down, today you will be learning the basics!" He instructed her while he was searching for a red and blue marker, as well as an eraser.

Seeing the whiteboard made her a little confused, "Aren't we meant to be standing up to fight?" she asked in confusion.

"You won't survive a minute against us all without basic knowledge about _Nen,_" Toshiro bluntly answered her question with plain honesty. "Do you want to have a flashback to when I knocked you down with one hit?"

"I'll pass!" She mumbled quietly before settling down. Getting beaten up once by him was more than enough, she didn't have him to remind her how much stronger he was. She looked back to see that Haruko and Natsume had already sat down and made themselves comfortable, waiting for Toshiro to begin his lesson on _Nen_. They both patted the empty spot they left in between them for her to come and sit down, and not wanting to argue back with Toshiro, she sat down and waited for him to give her his next set of instructions.

"Okay, good!" He said, seeing how she had eventually quietened down and chose to listen to him. "It will take me a while to explain everything so just listen." He continued, and noticed how Haruko and Natsume were a lot more excited for his lesson than his actual student. "Don't hesitate to ask questions, it will take longer depending on how fast you'll understand."

"Don't worry, I'm good at cramming information into my head!" She sounded confident; almost overly confident at her own abilities. But at the same time, she looked pretty proud of being able to 'cram information into her head' and although her confidence did impress both Natsume and Haruko, Toshiro felt like she was going to be a stubborn student to teach. You know those students that feel the need to disprove their teachers? Yeah, those!

Nonetheless, Toshiro started off by teaching her the basics of _Nen_; what it is and where it came from. He later continued to tell her about the four major principles and the six different types of _Nen_. It took him quite a while to stop talking, and although the crowd was quite impressed by his vast knowledge, Natsume had already dozed of long ago while Haruko was dangerously close to joining him. Himeko on the other hand surprisingly had her eyes peeled wide open, scanning the text and little diagrams he had drawn on the board.

"So, any questions?" He finally turned to Himeko once he stopped talking. Himeko however didn't reply as she was too busy memorising and processing whatever was on the board. Despite her confidence, Toshiro still remained doubtful. After all, youngsters always claimed to know everything when they rarely did. Himeko's confidence came from her background and upbringing in the Inoue clan. One thing she was good at was memorising, and though her brother remained unbeaten, she was still better than all her cousins. The only reason she expressed her confidence was because she knew how good she was at memorising things. "You seem confident," Toshiro pointed out while raising a brow at her straight face. He decided to throw a challenge at her, "Summarise everything I talked about in the past hour."

Hearing Toshiro's slightly annoyed voice, Natsume was able to wake up again while Haruko's eyes and ears were peeled open to see where this sudden turn of events was going to lead them. Although he appreciated Himeko's confidence and willingness to learn, he did doubt that any child would be smart enough to have such a good memory. But after Himeko heard her teacher's command, she took in a deep breath before starting to speak.

"_Nen_ is a technique that allows living beings to manipulate their life energy, or aura as some might say. Aura is produced by every single living organism and is vital for its survival. This aura flows through the body without the owner's own awareness and can often leak out from pores called _aura nodes_. Losing all of this energy is equivalent to losing one's life energy, which can result to sudden death, hence the first step to become a _Nen_ user is to control these pores. There are two ways to initiate training, one is by slowly training how to manually open and close these pores via meditation, and the other is undergoing _baptism_ where the user's pores are forcefully opened. The second method however could be fatal if the user cannot close their pores in time before all the aura has escaped. _Nen_ is also controlled by the emotional and mental state of the user, so these could also influence one's aura. There are four major principles. _Ten_, which is the process of keeping the nodes open but also keep your aura flow through your body and not away from it. _Ten_ can't protect you from any physical attacks, but can guard you from mental attacks such as intimidation. _Zetsu_ is the second technique, where you can keep these nodes closed in order to hide your presence. However, this could also leave the body defenceless against any attacks. _Ren_, the third principle which is the direct application of _Ten_. While _Ten_ is used for defence, _Ren_ is used for offence. _Hatsu_ is the projection of your aura to perform a certain function. It's one's personal expression of _Nen_ and allows the user to create unique abilities also called _Nen_ abilities."

The boys looked at her in awe as she continued summarising everything Toshiro had said in over an hour in just a matter of minutes.

"There are also six _Nen_ types. Each person is born with a different type that the user can then develop into a unique skill. Enhancement can be used to increase the natural abilities of an object of the users own body. They can usually use their ability to increase their physical attacks and defense. Transmutation allows the user to manipulate their aura to mimic properties of something else, but they don't have to be real things. Conjuration is similar to transmutation, but the only difference is that they are able to create physical and material objects using their aura. Manipulators are straightforward, they can manipulate living and non-living things. Emission allows the user to control the aura while it is separated from ones body. Any other abilities fall into the specialisation type, which is also the rarest type."

Haruko and Natsume instantly broke out into a round of applause after she finished talking, while Toshiro stood there, awestruck. "What have you been doing all your childhood, kid?" he asked in astonishment.

Himeko however just shrugged with the same confident and smug expression from earlier, "I'm just good at memorising things." She got the feeling that none of them were actually taking her serious, so seeing their impressed reactions was somewhat satisfying to her.

"Hey Toshi, I learnt more from her in a minute than from you in an hour!" Natsume pointed out, now more awake than ever, much to Toshiro's embarrassment. He frantically tried to change the subject not wanting to admit that a twelve year old was capable of memorising something he took days to learn in a mere hour. Next, Toshiro tried his best to explain how to open and close the nodes. Baptism was a too dangerous, and none of them were confident whether she was able to cope with the sudden pressure her body would be exposed to. She still had months left until September, so she wasn't exactly in a rush. With so much time still remaining, they wanted to train her properly so she actually knows what she is doing.

"Listen Kou, we'll meditate for a bit. I'll give you instructions while meditating," Haruko informed her. After all, he was in charge of giving her lessons on meditation and control, so he decided to take over from there. "Your aura looks very similar to steam and acts in a similar way as steam from a kettle. The more nodes you open, the more aura will leak out. Try to imagine it flowing through your body just like blood this very moment, and try to feel it."

It was a very absurd thing to imagine, or even to compare the human body to an inanimate object, yet Haruko tried his best to paint the perfect picture for her to think of. The four sat in a circle, and while Haruko was giving her the instructions, Natsume and Toshiro naturally took part in the meditation to help set the mood. _Nen_ was invisible, so it was much harder than she first thought. She wouldn't know whether she was doing it right or not as she couldn't see it, so it took her a couple of hours to actually create a fixed image of it in her head. But as soon as she was relaxed and looked satisfied with herself, the boys knew she was ready to move on to the actually task.

"Imagine pores on your skin opening," Haruko continued, "Create an image of this steam escaping through these pores." Although it sounded odd at first, the image of steam coming out of a kettle did eventually help her. It was much easier to paint the picture in your head than actually doing so, but the boys eventually saw and increase in aura leaking out of her body, giving them the indication that she was going down the right path. That was when Haruko decided to give her that final push she needed, "Concentrate kiddo, is that all the aura you've got in you? Open all of your pores!" Himeko continued to create the same image in her head and focus, and she eventually started to feel warmer and warmer. She thought it was the sun, and the morning transitioning into midday that made the temperature rise gradually, but she was wrong. After meditating for hours, she was finally able to open her eyes at Haruko's instruction. "Open your eyes now!"

As soon as she opened her eyes, she saw the three boys staring at her full of curiosity. Natsume and Toshiro had stopped meditating long ago and were waiting to see how far she would get with her own. "Can you see it?" Toshiro asked, wondering whether she was finally able to do it.

Himeko looked at her arms, her crossed legs, and her upper body. It was a strange sight to see, something straight out of a fantasy movie but this strange, warm, tingling feeling she got from it told her otherwise. It wasn't a bad feeling, neither did it hurt her or sting like she initially expected. On the contrary, it made her feel much lighter and happier for some odd reason, as if she could conquer the world like that. It was just like seeing a magic trick, so she still couldn't believe her own eyes. "It looks exactly like steam," she said looking at herself, and the aura gradually pouring out of her, _"This is so strange!"_

"Oi, it's starting to pour it," Toshiro snapped at her as soon as he noticed an influx of aura leaving her body, "Concentrate! Imagine the aura flowing through your body again while keeping your nodes open."

Knowing the consequences of all of the aura leaving the body too well, Himeko decided to focus and do as she was told. Toshiro's vague explanation didn't help much, but after trying to figure it out by herself, she eventually felt her own aura forming a lukewarm, liquid like layer around her entire body.

Seeing this, Natsume slow clapped for her effort, "Congrats, you've achieved _Ten_!" Hearing this, she finally managed to give the three a bright smile. After all these hours, she was at last able to achieve one of the four principles and not wanting to forget it in the future, she made a mental note to herself trying to remember how she got there.

"Don't celebrate yet, she still has to learn to control it properly!" Toshiro interrupted their celebration after noticing how hard she had to try in order to keep her _Ten_ state. "You will be doing this meditation every day to improve."

"Osu!"

Seeing how she was able to reach one stage in such a short time period, Toshiro and the others decided to move on to the next challenge. Now that she was able to open all her pores and control her aura, she had to try doing the opposite. "Good, now try shutting off your pores." After spending hours or teaching her how to completely shut all her pores, she eventually managed to learn _Zetsu_. It was a real struggle for her at first, so Haruko told her to keep trying to open and close her pores repeatedly to gain a much better control over it. Doing this helped her gain a much more stable _Ten_ and _Zetsu_, and these two were basics she had to apply to use any other technique. Upon Natsume's request, they also managed to teach her how to apply _Ten_ to achieve _Ren_, but she needed a lot more practice with that. But at the rate she was improving, none of them were particularly worried.

They knew that she would become an expert at it if she stuck to meditating every single day, and although some did doubt her abilities in the beginning, they did start to notice that she was a fast learner though she wasn't naturally gifted to achieve things on her first try. Himeko's eagerness to learn despite failing several times really did make it enjoyable for the boys to teach her. "Okay, how about we get to the exciting part?" Toshiro stood back up to prepare her next activity.

"Exciting? Another boring lecture?" Hearing her sudden lack of enthusiasm, Toshiro hit her on the head causing her to groan in pain. "Ouch, what was that for?" She started rubbing her head to calm the paining sensation. "That hurt a lot!"

"Stay here, I'll be back!" Toshiro said before leaving the room. She wondered what he was planning for her, especially after seeing how excited Natsume and Haruko were all of the sudden. In silence, they waited for Toshiro who joined them again with a glass of water and a leaf floating on top of it. After placing the glass in front of her, he proceeded to explain the next task. "We'll be doing something called water divination next. It will determine what type of _Nen_ you possess." He demonstrated it first and after a while, water started to pour out of the glass. "Perform _Ren_ and make sure to focus it mainly from your hands. There should be a change occurring which would determine what type of _Nen_ you possess."

Himeko looked straight at the glass of water in front of her, but before she could start Natsume interrupted. "I bet 1000 jenny she's a transmuter!"

"She's more simple minded and naive," Haruko rejected his claims immediately, "She can't be a transmuter, I bet 2000 jenny that she is an enhancer!"

"There is no way that brat is the same _Nen_ type as me!" Toshiro argued back, "And I'm not simple minded or naive!"

"She was naive and simple minded as a kid, but that doesn't mean she is like that now." Natsume pointed out, "She was trying to deceive us at the very beginning, tricking us with the good girl act. She might have talked a lot at dinner yesterday, but none of her responses answered my questions. I'm sure we weren't her only victims, she doesn't reveal her intentions unless she is forced to. If she isn't a transmuter, then I'll owe you both 1000 jenny." Himeko couldn't help but feel a little offended, especially hearing Natsume seriously describe her in such a negative manner.

"She's still naive and cute, don't talk about her in such a bad tone!" Haruko cut in to defend her, "You can change your personality, but not your _Nen_ type. Just because she matured doesn't mean her _Nen_ type would change. She's determined to do well, simple and selfishly wants to do whatever she sets her mind to." Although he was trying to defend her, Himeko still couldn't help but feel offended by his statement as well. "I'll stick to my choice!"

"Aren't you going to bet?" Natsume started challenging Toshiro, wanting him to join the two so more money was to be won. Toshiro gave in eventually.

"She's obviously an emitter, you can tell just by looking at her!" He started to logically explain in a more calm fashion. "She's quick-tempered, impatient, messy and overall just weird and plain dumb, just like all other emitters!"

"Hey!" Haruko was the first one to object again, "Emitters aren't dumb or weird!"

"How much you betting?" Natsume asked Toshiro.

"1500 jenny."

Natsume then turned his attention to Himeko, "Well then Kou, why don't you answer the one million jenny question already?" Although he was a nice person, there is something about Natsume that scared her. He had a tenancy to say things in an overly serious manner sometimes, and although Toshiro was quite serious too most of the time, the two were different. Natsume acted like a class clown, but there were moments where his way of talking was very stoic, contrasting his initial joyful manner.

Being pressured to perform the task perfectly on her first go, she wrapped her hands around the glass and focused her aura around it. It was all she had learnt that day, so she decided to put it to good use, but after noticing that nothing exciting happened with her glass or the water in it, she stopped. "It's not working!" She said irritated and slightly panicking at the sight of the unchanged glass of water. "Are you sure this works?"

"Yes," Toshiro nodded confidently.

"In that case, I don't have any superpowers," she said, pushing the glass away to escape the great pressure everyone else was putting on her. Seeing her foul attitude, Toshiro hit her on the head again. "Ouch, that seriously hurts!"

"Toshi, can't you go a little more easy on her?" Haruko tried to calm him down, seeing how he had hit her twice that day.

"How am I supposed to teach this blockhead? What was Sensei even thinking?" He yelled out in frustration. "She is smart and has a lot of potential but she's way too impatient and quick tempered, this is what I meant by her being an emitter!"

"Sorry for being an impatient brat, I was just asking whether it worked or not. No need to shout." She shouted back, trying to defend herself.

"It did work! Just because there is no observable change, doesn't mean that there is no change at all!" He explained while simultaneously yelling at the same time. "Try tasting the water."

She turned to the glass of water after Toshiro had finally finished yelling at stared hard. She found it hard to believe that the water would taste any different, but she decided to try either way. Upon tasting the water, she started to cringe, "It's sour!"

Natsume triumphantly patted his own back after hearing her response, "I guess I won this one!"

"You changed the taste of the water, that means you're a transmuter."

"So, I can change mimic a certain property of something with my aura?" Himeko started to think of the endless possibilities she can do with her ability. It just sounded very cool to her compared to what an enhancer could do. She can even control a whole element if she wanted to, maybe even make up an element of her own.

"Hold your horses, you still haven't gotten your basics down yet. You need to work on that first before you can develop your own _Hatsu,_" Toshiro reminded her knowing way too well that she was off fantasising about her potential powers. "Also, creating your own techniques is quite hard itself. It requires a lot of training and should also be based of the kind of person you are." Himeko snapped out of it and looked at him confusedly.

"What he means by that is that your own technique should be a reflection of your personality," Natsume expanded on what Toshiro had just said, "It should be based off on your personal experiences and your inner self, copying another person's abilities could end very badly." She carefully listened to all their warnings. According to them, not being able to do the basics, rushing training and even copying another person's technique could turn out badly in a fight and could end up as a disadvantage. You can never master _Nen_ by copying and following what others are doing, you have to discover your own powers and your own self through meditation. It could take years depending on every individual, but some can even learn it in a matter of days which she found quite hard to believe at first.

"I'm actually an enhancer," Toshiro told her. "I use my _Nen_ to increase my own physical strength. One thing that all of us have to keep in mind is that we also have extra strength, so having above average strength adds to the fact that I'm already a natural enhancer. Those abilities go together hand in hand, but when it comes to you, you'll have to find a way to try and make them go hand in hand."

"I'm an emitter," Haruko said. "Since my _Nen_ type is better for far distance attacks instead of close range attacks, the drug really didn't give me many options. Physical attacks are more effective from a close range, so I could initially only use these two abilities separately. You need to find a way to use those abilities hand in hand."

"Guess I'm the only one left, I'm a Conjurer," Natsume said. "Like Toshi explained earlier, my ability is very similar to yours. The difference is that I can create real, material objects instead of having my aura to mimic them. Having extra strength gives me a real advantage when using weapons."

"So we are all different types, huh?" she thought, out loud, but at the same time she couldn't help but be excited knowing that she can see nearly every _Nen_ ability with her own eyes. "Can you show me your techniques?"

"We'll show them to you after you improve and develop your own _Nen,_" Toshiro answered, shooting her hopes back down. "For now, I'll be meditating with you every day for a couple of hours and helping you perfect your basics before me move on. Haru will also be meditating with us and then he'll teach you how to control your strength every afternoon, and Natsu was put in charge of teaching you hand to hand combat in the evenings." At the mention of time, Himeko decided to finally look outside to see what time of day it was.

"We've spent nearly a day meditating and teaching you the basics of _Nen_, so I guess my job and Toshi's job is done for today!" Haruko pointed out, noticing that the day was nearly over. "We'll be cooking dinner, so you and Natsu should start training." After saying this, Toshiro and Haruko left the room discussing what to cook for dinner, leaving Natsume and Himeko alone to train. But on the way to back the kitchen, Haruko began to worry a little. "Do you think she'll be fine training with him?"

Toshiro thought about his elder's question for a while, and understood where he was coming from. "I don't really know," he confessed. "I don't know why Sensei assigned him to do the combat training in the first place. He knows too well that Natsu doesn't show any mercy when it comes to fighting."

"Right, his sadistic nature comes out when fighting. It just gives me chills thinking about it, I feel like he sometimes tries to kill me when we train together."

Back in the training room, the Natsume and Himeko got ready to train. Although this was her third session for the day, she was most excited for this one, mainly due to the fact that this was going to make her stronger physically.

"I won't just teach you hand to hand combat, I will also teach you how to use some weapons," Natsume stated before they started training. The fact that he was a conjurer made him more experienced when it came to weapon usage compared to the other two. "Okay, first up I'd like you to come straight up at me and attack me."

"What?"

"Don't ask questions, just do it. Hit me as hard as you can and make sure not to hold back your true strength." His instructions were quite simple, all she had to do was attack him straight on, it sounded simple enough. She followed his instructions and ran up to attack him with all her force, but with just one kick, he managed to send her flying across the room, and her body hit against the wall. She managed to get back on her feet again, and stumbled towards him. "What's wrong?" He asked her. "I never said anything about not fighting back or going easy on you. Let me warn you, if you can't keep up with me, I might accidentally end up killing you." Natsume seemed to have been the nicest out of the three, but now he seemed to have had a 180 degree personality change. She didn't know whether she was up against the same Natsume anymore.

This was how Himeko's real training began. She was happy to get back out of the forest alive, but compared to the intensity of the training she was about to receive, the week at the forest was nothing. After all, now she was training with the _real_ Beasts.

* * *

**A/n -** I just don't feel satisfied with this chapter for some reason. I wrote this same chapter 3 times and this is my third attempt. Maybe it's because this chapter is loaded with too much information :/

Well, how did you think she'll handle her training and I also wanted to ask you all who your favourite OC is so far? I'm just very curious! ^^


	19. Training

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 18**

_Training_

_..._

It was now seven o'clock in the evening, Haruko and Toshiro were nervously cutting vegetables for the curry they were making for dinner. The carrots and potatoes looked strange as they were cut in all kinds of different shapes and sizes since the two weren't paying attention to it at all. Thankfully, no one has managed to cut their fingers so far.

"It's been two hours Toshi, I don't think I can wait any longer!" Haruko mumbled while he was still deep in thought. It had been two hours since Himeko started her physical training with Natsume or _Prince Sadist_ as they liked to call him. "I need to check how badly she's beaten up before I can move on with life!" The calm and collected big brother of the group had officially become a hot mess just thinking of the ruthless methods Natsume could use to train her. Maybe he wasn't even training her; Natsume was the type of person that would use her as a punching bag for his own amusement.

"Do you think that she still has all her hands and legs?" Toshiro asked Haruko in return. "What if we all get arrested for child abuse? If Natsume is the only one involved, are we all going to jail?" They both sighed in sync and continued to with dinner preparation. Sensei was in another room meditating as usual while dinner was being prepared.

At one point, Natsume joined them in the kitchen, strolling in casually and helping himself to a carrot. Although he was almost emotionless, the pair still worried for Himeko's life, or at least wondered whether she still was in one piece. "Where's the brat?" Toshiro asked, trying to suppress his worried tone.

"You mean Kou?" Natsume turned his attention to his fellow trainees before taking a big bite out of the carrot. "I told her to go and take a bath first. We can go and use the bath after dinner then."

Hearing this response, Toshiro and Haruko let out a sigh of relief. _"So she is still alive after all."_ They thought, finally being able to calm themselves down.

"Want me to help with the cutting?" Natsume offered, searching for a knife in one of the drawers, "I'm pretty good at it!"

_"Yes, we know how good you are at cutting things…"_ Toshiro and Haruko thought, remembering all the times Natsume 'accidentally cut the sleeves of their clothes off while training. Natsume tried snapping them out of their thoughts as they weren't answering his question. The two boys didn't need much help making the curry, so they told Natsume to wash the rice and let that cook instead. He obediently walked towards the sack of rice and did as they were told.

While the boys were cooking in the kitchen, Himeko sat in the bath thinking back to her training session with Natsume.

_"What's wrong? Did you think I'd go easy on you just because you're a girl?" Natsume asked with absolutely no remorse. "Get back up on your feet before I accidentally kill you!" Hearing this, Himeko stumbled back on her feet. Natsume didn't look like he was joking one bit, he took this training very seriously; a lot more seriously than he was supposed to. He told her to keep coming at him and attacking him, but Himeko lacked both the speed and ability. She got hit a several dozen times in return as she failed to dodge his attacks._

_Around two hours later, she started to understand Natsume's combat techniques. She noticed that compared to his legs, he preferred to use his fists, and itt could be because of the fact that he specialised in weapon usage. Himeko finally managed to dodge a punch she was throwing, but she was thrown off guard by a kick. Once again, she was sent flying back and hit the wall._

_"Don't underestimate your opponent," he warned her. He knew that she had finally noticed a pattern in his attacks so he decided to change his pattern which caught her off guard. "An experienced fighter has a lot of tricks up his sleeves. You can't underestimate them!" At this point, it had been over two hours. Natsume was unharmed since Himeko only managed to hit him once or maybe twice, while Natsume did not hold back at all. The training session left bruises all over her body, but it just made her want to fight even more. It made her want to give Natsume at least one bruise. "Training's over," he finally announced. "We'll continue tomorrow evening. I'm going to go and help the other two with cooking, so you should go and take a bath!"_

_"Osu!" Natsume left her in the training room and headed for the kitchen. Himeko also left as soon as she was able to get back enough strength to walk to the bathroom._

Although that experience was rather embarrassing from her point, she was positive that Natsume didn't purposely try to ridicule her. He was just giving her a taste of what a real fight would look like, and although he didn't make it obvious, he also held back. She actually appreciated his method of training although it did intimidate her at first. The only way for her to become stronger was for someone to go all out on her. If she was pressured into becoming stronger and pushed to her limits, she knew she could get stronger by the time she had to leave.

_"I'm still not strong enough!"_ She thought, looking at her own bruises left by the training session. Rather than viewing them as an sign of defeat, Himeko tried to look at her bruises as a reminder that she wasn't strong enough to continue her journey. If she were to leave at her level, she could die after encountering a strong opponent. _"At this rate I'm going to be left behind by everyone else. I have to put more effort into practice from tomorrow onwards. If I don't work hard, I would probably be in everyone's way in Yorkshin." _It was the harsh truth, but she wasn't trying to lower her own self esteem. Instead, she was trying to motivate herself by thinking of how strong everyone was already at the Hunter exam. Although she was probably stronger than Gon, Kurapika and Leorio, all three of them showed a lot of potential, and if they were to learn _Nen_ before the meet up they would be much stronger than her. Killua who was already stronger than her could become stronger if he were to learn _Nen_.

Rather than taking a bath, she decided to spend more time thinking. This was the first time in a while where she got some peace and quiet to think about the future, so she tried to use it effectively. The toilet and shower are places most people use to think, so she tried to calm her nerves and do just that. She didn't have anymore clues on her brother, and searching aimlessly around the world wasn't going to get her anywhere. According to Kurapika, Hisoka was going to visit Yorkshin, so if he was going to be there he would at least have some kind of information on Hakuryuu. She didn't want to end up relying on Hisoka, but somehow she knew that he was telling her the truth. Under some odd circumstances Hisoka and Hakuryuu met and became close enough to know each other's names. If Hakuryuu was as sane as she remembered him to be, she knew that he wouldn't try to get close to Hisoka; if anything, Hisoka would be trying to get close to him, just like his one sided obsession with Gon. The fact that Hisoka only paid attention to strong people assured her that Hakuryuu had become quite strong over the years, possibly much stronger than she was with the drug. If that was the case, he would be capable of looking after himself but she still wanted to find him to learn the truth about what really happened back then.

After soaking in the hot water for a while, Himeko decided to finally get out of the tub. The dojo was very specific about timing, so she didn't want to risk anyone bursting into the bathroom just to tell her that she was taking too long. Seeing how her day went so far, that was very likely to happen if she did end up crossing a certain time limit. She then proceeded to dry herself and put on a new set of clothes before stepping outside. Hoping that she could help the boys in making dinner, she walked towards the kitchen to help out, but the kitchen was empty. However, the smell of the freshly cooked curry was still lingering around and Himeko decided to follow the smell. _"Don't tell me…"_ She ran towards the dining room and found that everyone had already started eating without her, again.

"It's bad for your skin to stay in hot water for this long." Upon her arrival, Haruko told her off with a mouth full of rice and curry. She quickly sat down at her seat, flipped over her plate and scooped on some rice and curry before she started eating.

"Brat learns fast!" Toshiro whispered to Haruko, and he couldn't help but agree. They eventually started to notice the bruises on her arms and turned to Natsume who was innocently helping himself to another portion of rice.

"So how was training, child?" Sensei asked her now that she was done with her first day of training. Toshiro and Haruko wondered whether that was a good question to ask as her physical appearance itself said quite a lot about how her training went, but then again Sensei knowingly assigned Natsume to beat her up everyday, so he would have expected the consequences.

"Her reflexes are still slow and she's still holding back," Natsume answered for her before outlining every single flaw she portrayed while fighting. The level of detail he went down to ended up surprising her as he didn't exactly look like he was paying attention to her movements at all. He was waiting for her to attack, and countered them with his own. But surprisingly he was still able to take note of every single muscle movement that didn't do her any favour, and there were quite a lot on that list. "Of course, I didn't hold back one bit."

"Don't be so proud you idiot!" Haruko started yelling at him. "It looks more like she was beaten up by you, she could easily file a case against you for child abuse. We can all get sued!"

"No, it's alright!" Himeko's interruption was something no one expected. If anything, Haruko expected her to want a much nicer teacher than Natsume. However, in her eyes that wasn't the case at all. For hand to hand combat, Natsume was the perfect sparring partner; he wasn't teaching her, he was using the opportunity every day to give her a taste of what it was like to fight a real opponent, something that training wasn't going to teach her. She understood why Sensei picked him out of everyone for the job, knowing that he'll be able to push her out of her comfort zone and prepare her for real battles. "I won't learn if you all go easy on me, I don't want to hold my friends back and rely on them too much when we meet up again. Besides, these bruises will fade by tomorrow anyway, so it's no big deal at all. I want to try getting less bruises tomorrow."

"See, she's okay!" Natsume said as he continued munching. However, despite his indifferent tone they could all sense the amount of dedication she had to become stronger. It really did make them want to try their best to try and teach her everything they knew too. It gave them a sense of pride, wanting to see how strong their student could really become. This was probably one of the things that made Sensei happy while training them too. They came to the realisation that they weren't just his students, but also his pride.

They kept eating in silence when Himeko suddenly remembered that she didn't let her friends know about training. Knowing Gon and Leorio, they would eventually start worrying about her. Not just that, she really wanted to check whether Kurapika had replied but Sensei took her phone off her in the morning. "Sensei, can I have my phone back?" She asked in a polite tone. "I'd like to let my friends know that I'm doing well."

"Phone?" He asked, before remembering that he did indeed take her phone in the morning. "Oh, the thing I took off you? It kept making noises, so I wanted to turn it off. I ended up breaking it by accident."

It took a moment for her to process that piece of information. She must have heard wrong, there was no way her only way to communicate with her friends would break so easily. After all, she ended up getting ripped off by the guy that sold her the pink flip phone, so it wouldn't break so easily, right? "Could you repeat that please? I don't think I heard right." Himeko laughed nervously, hoping Sensei was just trying to make an old person joke she didn't understand. Or maybe he broke is back while her phone was in his possession. Whatever it was, she refused to believe that her phone was actually broken.

"I broke it!" He said bluntly, this time getting the point across that he did indeed break her little hand held device he confiscated in the morning. Literally seeing steam come out of her ears, Haruko, Toshiro and Natsume decided to cover the ears, knowing that there will be a lot of shouting going on from here onwards.

"You broke it?!" Himeko finally snapped. "Do you even know how much that phone costed me? I might be from a rich family but I'm not rich anymore, to be perfectly honest, I'm poor. I had to work so much just to buy that phone, and it wasn't even blue, it was pink and I still kept it because I was too stingy to buy a new one!" Her rant about not having enough money to buy the latest gadgets in her favourite colour quickly blew up into a much bigger scale. Not that she was particularly interested in technology because she rarely used them, her phone had always been something she could use for emergencies. All the numbers she had saved on there were those of her employers, and as soon as she was sacked from one job, she would delete that number and that cycle would repeat. Before starting the Hunter exam, she didn't have one single number, apart from the customer service number of her mobile network, so since there was no one she could message or phone she wasn't particularly interested in her phone; although she had pride in the fact that she bought it with her own, hard earned money. Now after she finally found some friends, she was excited to finally use it properly like any other human being. But thanks to Sensei, that didn't really last too long.

"Silence kid!" He yelled back in a much louder tone than hers. "I never understood why you children spend so much money on rubbish anyway!" Sensei was the type to still write letters and use pigeons to deliver those messages. He considered himself to be too old to be using phones, laptops, tablets et cetera, so he was never particularly interested in it. Moreover, he thought it was a complete waste of time, making the newer generation much lazier than they already are. In one way or another, although his approach was a little extreme he did have a fair point. Hearing his response, Himeko continued to curse Sensei quietly under her breath.

"If it makes you feel any better, he broke my phone too," Natsume confessed a story of his own that happened a year ago, before sharing one of his friend's. "Oh, and once Haru bought a new laptop for work related things and Sensei dropped it on the floor. Luckily it still worked."

"The laptop started bugging after it fell, so I had to get it fixed!" Haruko added a major complain to Natsume's statement. "It looked fine at first, but the system was pretty messed up!"

To sum the whole topic up, Toshiro decided to give her a piece of useful advice for her to follow. "In conclusion, just keep your electrical devices away from Sensei!"

Hearing all his students turn on him, the old man couldn't help but start ranting about how ungrateful they truly were. "You impudent little kids, always blaming your Sensei."

"That's because you are to blame for half the accidents here!" Toshiro shot back, and although Sensei made a sour face at first, the atmosphere quickly became much lighter after he started laughing it off. Her first day at the dojo might have had a major plot twist, but her first full day as a trainee did help her ease up to everyone. Sensei might look like the strict, traditional, old grandfather everyone might have, but there were times where he was also that grandfather who would cause mischief with his grandchildren. Toshiro, Haruko and Natsume all had their own distinct personalities, but at the end of the day when everyone was at the dinner table they all just felt like older brothers to her. Although it saddened her to think of it this way, but she never laughed this much at her dinner table back in the Inoue clan, and neither did her grandfathers ever show a side other their strict side. Hakuryuu too was stiff and not as easy going as these three; it almost felt as if he was just an acquaintance, and nothing more.

Natsume and Toshiro arguing over the last portion of rice, Haruko trying to bring some peace between them while discretely trying to save the last portion for Himeko, Sensei trying to bear with all the noise before eventually snapping; although no one on this table was related by blood, they all felt more of a family than her own family that always ate in silence. It didn't matter how different they all looked; black hair, brown hair, grey hair, strawberry blonde hair, blue eyes, brown eyes, hazel eyes, pale skin, tan skin. At the end of the day, Himeko finally learned that looking identical doesn't make you a family. It all came down to how well their personalities fit together. Just because someone looked like you doesn't mean that they were trustworthy, and just because someone looked completely different to you didn't make them untrustworthy. It was a lesson that Himeko took twelve long years to learn.

After eating dinner, Sensei was the first person to excuse himself from the table, and the boys followed one by one. Himeko was still on clean up duty, so after clearing the table, she took the dishes to the kitchen and started washing them along with all the used pots and pans. The boys took turns to take a bath, while Sensei went to the training room to meditate as usual. This was pretty much how Himeko's first day of training went by at the dojo. After saying good night to everyone, she brushed her teeth and went straight to sleep in her room. Training was tough, and not even the Hunter exam was able to wear her out this much. She was able to fall asleep into a nice, deep, slumber.

...

A whole month has past since Himeko's arrival to the dojo, and the winter weather was finally starting to fade. Spring was finally starting to settle in, and the trees at the dojo were starting to bloom and fill with cherry blossoms. Although the seasons were beginning to change, at the dojo nothing much has actually happened. It took some time, but Himeko eventually managed to adjust to her new surrounding as well as the company of Sensei and the boys. She grew fond of Sensei and all three of her teachers, but other than that, everything stayed pretty much the same as day one of her training.

"Get up, you lazy child!" Himeko shot straight out of her futon after hearing Sensei shout from outside her room. It took her a minute to fold away her futon and get changed into her training clothes before she stormed right out of her room to stand face to face with Sensei. She quickly hand combed through her hair to fix her messy bed hair before asking to question she already knew the answer to.

"Am I late again?" But Sensei answered her question by handing her the red bucket along with the dirty washcloth. He then looked over her shoulder to check how messy her room was, and since Himeko only had a rucksack full of belongings, her room was pretty tidy compared to the room shared by the trio of boys. Although she had been there for a month now, she couldn't beat Sensei or the boys when it came to waking up, so she ended up doing the clean-up duty every single day. It had almost become part of her training to scrub every single corner of the dojo until they could see their reflection on the wooden floors.

Seeing Himeko motionless, Sensei couldn't help but grow impatient, "What are you staring at? Get moving!" He yelled in his loud, bossy voice, before flicking her on the forehead. You could say that this was his signature punishment he used on his pupils, and it hurt a lot. Although it was just a flick, it left a big, red mark, to show the world that she did something wrong. Himeko winced in pain, while rubbing her forehead slightly before she decided to jump into action.

"Osu!" With the bucket still in her hand, she run straight to the bathroom and filled it halfway with some lukewarm water. She picked out the lavender scented floor cleaner and poured a cap full of the purple liquid into the bucket, before running back into the hallway to begin cleaning. After dunking the washcloth into the warm water, she wrung out the excess before running back and forth the hallway, cleaning the floor. While completing yet another lap, she noticed that someone carelessly walked over the spot she had just cleaned with his dirty, week old socks. "I just cleaned that spot, you shit head!" She yelled at him with a scowl on her face.

Haruko who just realised that he was walking over the freshly cleaned floor, looked around and before giving her a fake, apologetic expression. "Sorry kiddo, just clean it again," he said while yawning, as if it was no big deal before continuing to walk down the hallway, back to his own room.

"Hey, come back!" She continued to shout, but Haruko just ignored her and kept walking on. "Take responsibility for your actions, and help me clean up!"

"You've got more than enough energy to clean the dojo at least four times. Keep at it!" He shouted back, before holding his thumbs up to motivate her. Himeko soaked the washcloth in the bucket of water angrily, before she continued cleaning. For those of you wondering, yes, she did just openly called Haruko a _shit head_. This sudden turn of evens occurred around a week, or maybe even two weeks ago.

_"I'm done cleaning!" Himeko triumphantly sung, as she walked into the dining room. She looked around to see that Sensei had already finished eating breakfast and left for his morning meditation quite long ago, while the trio of boys were still stuffing their faces with rice. Not wanting to lose to them, she rushed over to her usual spot and sat down._

_"Ah, Kou!" Natsume said as he looked to his side, with a mouth stuffed with rice, "You took longer to clean today," he pointed out, while still chewing on his food. He then looked up at the clock placed above the door to check whether he wasn't just imagining things, and he turned out to be right. Himeko arrived ten minutes later than usual._

_"Yeah, I was told to take care of the plants outside as well today," she began to explain. As spring was getting closer, the list of jobs to do at the dojo was gradually getting longer. Looking after the plants outside the dojo, and watering them on a daily basis was one of these jobs. Himeko then wasted no time and took her bowl in one hand, opening the rice pot with the other, but upon seeing the content her face fell. She quickly replaced the lid and opened it once again, only to see that she wasn't imagining things the first time she opened the lid. __"What happened to my share of the rice?" She asked clenching her teeth, trying to hold back her anger._

_"You mean, our rice?" Toshiro asked, emphasising on the fact that the rice belonged to all of them. "We thought that you might not want breakfast today since you came so late, so we ate on your behalf. You girls are so confusing sometimes, randomly going on diets and randomly wanting to eat a whole chocolate factory. We can't predict your change in moods!"_

_This was definitely a prank they were playing on her, it had to be a prank! Hoping that Toshiro was just attempting to be funny, she proceeded to check every other side dish, only to see that those were empty too. There was no breakfast left for her, they had eaten it all._

_"We told you it's survival of the fittest here," Haruko reminded her of the number one rule in the dojo, "You should have at least told me you were going to come late." Not even the sweet Haruko went easy on her anymore; they were all heartless now._

_"Do you guys even know?" She mumbled quietly, while sadly looking at the empty bowl in her hand. She started to shed a few tears, which made the boys freeze with the food in their mouths. __"Do you guys even know how much I like to eat?" Himeko began bawling her eyes out. For some reason, it was a very funny sight to see, but the boys just froze, not knowing what to do next, and how to stop her from crying. She wasn't really upset about the food, she was more upset about her not being able to cope in the dojo. She was always the last one to wake up and had to clean, she was the last one at breakfast, lunch and dinner which left her with little, to no food left, training was hard and the boys tried pushing her out of her comfort zone. The boys had never seen her have a mental breakdown before, so they thought that she was coping quite fine with everything, so her bawling her eyes out all of the sudden was the last thing they expected to happen._

_"Oi, kid! Stop bawling already!" __Toshiro was the first one to try and get her to stop, but he didn't exactly do a good job. Not only did he use his indifferent, and harsh tone to talk to her, he also gave her the stupidest reason to stop crying.__ "No guy would want to date you after seeing you cry so ugly." _

_"Shut up, asshole!" She shouted at him, making him sit back down in silence. "You are the worst! Idiot!" __She continued sobbing even louder than she did before Toshiro's unnecessary remarks, causing him to earn some glares from his by standers. Toshiro just looked around helplessly, clearly not knowing what to do next and hoped that one of the two would take over and get her to stop crying._

_"Come on Kou, I still have some rice left. You can have it." Haruko attempted to comfort her next, clearly doing better than Toshiro. "If you don't want it, I'll go and make up some more!"_

_"No, I don't want your stupid food!" She shouted back._

_"But you said-" Haruko started, but was cut off by Himeko._

_"Shut up, shit head!" She yelled, making Haruko choke on his rice hearing her swear at him all of the sudden._

_"Why do you look so shocked?" Natsume questioned Toshiro and Haruko who were pretty much defeated, in a casual tone as he continued to eat his rice at lightening speed. "She clearly learned all those swear words from us. We use them all the time in front of her, so of course she will join in sooner or later." Although he was usually the one to joke around, he did have the most logical explanation out of the three. The fact that they were the bad influence shocked Toshiro, and Haruko even more, while Natsume was calmly chugging down his food. Not that he didn't have a conscience, he just accepted the fact that he was partially at fault here._

_"Be quiet Natsu, what do you mean we? You and Toshi use those words the most, I didn't want to raise my Kou like that!" Haruko shot back at Natsume while sobbing at the same time. Now it wasn't just Himeko's loud sobbing noises that could be heard, if you listened closely, you could hear Haruko's very faint sobbing in the background. It took not even a minute for the dining table to turn into a circus act. "Do us all a favour and try to get her to stop crying. She might listen to you!"_

_Natsume eventually stopped chewing and placed his now empty bowl aside, before clearing his throat. Toshiro was already face-palming, knowing something stupid was going to come out of his mouth any second now. "Don't worry girlfriend, don't listen to Toshi. I would still date you even if you're crying." Natsume honestly tried putting some effort into it, but he still ended up earning a punch on the head from Haruko, who was sitting right next to him._

_"That's not the problem here!" Haruko yelled at him right back at him. Natsume did tend to call Himeko 'girlfriend', but mainly as a gag to try and get on Haruko's nerves, referring to the time when they all first introduced themselves at the dinner table._

_"Okay Kou, stop crying!" Natsume tried once again, but this time on a more serious note. "I'll teach you for an extra two hours if you stop crying." _Hearing the news, Himeko immediately started bawling her eyes out even more as training with Natsume was the last thing she wanted to happen.

_"As if I want that you-" Himeko stopped in her tracks and hesitated a little before swearing at Natsume. No matter how nice he acted towards her outside the training room, the fact that she was at death's doorstep whenever they trained made her afraid of him. Although Toshiro was the one who shouted at her the most, she wasn't scared of him at all. Haruko tried his best to be the big brother character, but he ended up acting clingy most of the time. Natsume on the other hand, no matter how much of an innocent baby face he had, he was a sadistic demon on the inside, and it didn't take Himeko long to figure that out._

_"You, what?" Natsume asked, anticipating how she would finish her sentence, knowing very well how afraid she was of him._

_"Poop head!" She blurted out, not being able to come up with any other insult. Natsume was silent for a while, trying to process what she just said, but he couldn't help but burst out into laughter straight afterwards._

_"Why does he get the cuter nickname?" Haruko was the first one to object to the less offending nickname she had given his younger roommate. _

_"Maybe because she likes me more!" Natsume cheekily stuck his tongue out at his elder. The two started bickering, and even Himeko stopped crying seeing how their argument stopped making any sense after a while. "Look, even Toshi is still in shock." Natsume provoked Toshiro, only to make him join into their argument too. Watching them argue, Himeko couldn't help but just laugh out loud, no matter how much she tried to suppress her laughter. One thing she noticed about their arguments was how random they truly were. They rarely argued over a much more serious matter, so most arguments were over the last piece of meat, or who was snoring the loudest in their room. She didn't know why she found it so comedic, but maybe she just naturally laughed at them because she felt quite comfortable around them. After all, laughing was one of the easiest ways for someone to express themselves, and Himeko was no different. __The three stopped fighting after they heard a loud laughter coming from her side of the table, and they turned to confirm whether she was actually laughing. They couldn't help but smile, and ended up joining in._

_"Come on, it's time to train." Toshiro interrupted, still clutching his stomach from the long round of laughter. He stood up from the table, expecting his student to do the same. "I'll give you a piggyback ride to the training room as an apology. We'll walk through the garden, so you can try and pick some apples on the way."_

_Himeko stood up too, and walked towards him with a bright smile on her face. However, she just kicked him in the shin, and continued walking to the training room by herself. "No!"_

_Feeling the throbbing pain in his shin, Toshiro couldn't help but curse at her under his breath, watching her walk off so cockily. "That little brat!"_

From that day forth, she started using those so called nicknames whenever they managed to get on her nerves; which means that she pretty much had to use these on a daily basis. Once she was finally done cleaning the entire dojo, she rushed to the dining table and wasted not another second to start eating. Toshiro, Natsume and Haruko never went easy on her in the dining room, so she couldn't show mercy either. She was able to finish and leave the table five minutes after the boys, and took the dirty dishes to the kitchen to clean.

"She's getting quite good at this." Natsume commented, as they carefully watched her swiftly move around the whole dojo.

"She might not look like it, but she's got a lot of potential." Toshiro added, recalling her progress over the past few weeks. "We have to try and push her to her limits." The trio continued to observe her and all came to the same conclusion. Himeko did have great potential as Toshiro mentioned, and she did also have the determination and will to learn, but at the same time she was stopping herself from doing well in training. Maybe she was still too scared of what she was really capable of, but if she did manage to overcome that fear she'd be stronger in no time. There were a couple of gifted children who would be able to learn _Nen_ in just one try and perfect the basics in just a month, but Himeko wasn't one of those. However, her will to do better than everyone else did drive her forward. Soon, the three started heading their separate ways. Toshiro went to the training room and waited for Himeko to arrive, while the others went off to other rooms, wanting to undergo individual training until it was their turn to train Himeko. After seeing her step into the room eventually, Toshiro dished out his first instruction. "Late, run ten laps around the dojo!"

But after she heard his false accusation, Himeko immediately felt the need to protest, "I usually come around this time."

"Okay, then let's make it twenty laps!" Toshiro suddenly changed his mind, and Himeko ran out of the room and started running the laps, before he decided to double the number of laps further. She came back soon after, ready to train. "Today we'll be using _Nen_ to fight," he informed her. "We've worked a month to improve your _Ten_, _Zetsu_ and _Ren_. Meditation alone isn't going to enhance your skills, you need to know when to use what, and you'll have to have experience using it in battle."

"So, no meditation today?" She asked curiously. Medication was a fundamental practice they had to do every single day, so the fact that he wasn't going to do it surprised her.

"Yes, I won't be meditating with you today, but Haru will before he starts your physical training today. Natsu wanted to start teaching you how to use a katana today!" Toshiro continued to explain her new schedule. She was going to learn new things today, and the fact that most of these had to do with real fighting excited her. She definitely felt like she had improved in all areas thanks to the boys. Her _Ten_ was a lot more stable than before, and she could keep her _Zetsu_ state for much longer now without slipping up. _Ren_, which she wasn't able to control properly at the start also wasn't much of a challenge anymore. She wanted to improve those three skills quickly, so she can start her Hatsu training, which she knew won't be as easy as these three. In terms of control, she has learnt how to control her strength better thanks to Haruko. Learning from him was quite useful mainly due to the fact that he was an expert at it. She was also able to cope much better when it comes to training with Natsume. Dodging his attacks was still a big problem, but as the days went by she was getting much better at it. She was even able to land a couple of punch on him.

"Cool, when do we start?"

"Before we start, I have a status report from Chairman Netero," he informed her. Netero, she hadn't heard that name in quite a long time. She was starting to worry what Netero wanted from her. If it was a message from the Chairman himself, it must have been very important indeed. Himeko stood there anticipating what Toshiro was about to tell her. "Your friends Gon and Killua have started training a long time ago, and acquired _Nen_." He stated, before he began praising the two boys, "Quite an impressive pair, they both underwent _Baptism_ and managed to improve at such a fast rate. It's extremely rare to find such talented individuals, and to think that they are the same age as you." He turned over to his pupil who was pouting at, burning with jealousy. "Of course my favourite pupil is much better and smarter." He grinned nervously, before fake coughing several times. "Your friend Kurapika has also achieved _Nen,_ and found a job too."

_"He's alright after all!_" Himeko sighed in relief hearing that Kurapika hasn't done anything reckless and life-threatening yet. She continued to listen to the status report, hoping to get some news on how Leorio was coping. Since her phone was unusable now, she couldn't contact them to check up how they were all doing.

"Hanzo has also completed his training, while Pokkle seems to be struggling with his training," he read off the report he wrote himself. "Leorio will start his training after he gets into medical school."

_"His exam should be in a few weeks time."_ She thought, hoping that Leorio was actually studying instead of messing around. But then again, she recalled how passionate Leorio was about becoming a doctor and that thought set her mind at peace. _"I can't even wish him good luck now that I don't even have a phone." _Somehow she found it strange that everyone who passed the Hunter exam was starting to learn Nen, as if it was some kind of additional training they all had to do. Not surprisingly, there was no news on what happened to Hisoka or Illumi, and not hearing their names pop up managed to calm her down. However, she decided not to dig too deep into it.

"Let's start today's training!" Toshiro announced, snapping her out of her thoughts. "After all, you can't lose to any of your friends, right?"

He knew exactly which buttons to push to bring out her competitive site, and Himeko gave him a confident smile, showing that she was ready to face any challenge he threw at her. After a month of brushing up her basics, she was finally ready to move on. She wasn't prepared to lose against Gon, Killua or even Kurapika, if anything, she wanted to become just as strong, and if not stronger than the trio.

With only a few more months left of training at the dojo, Himeko decided to give it her all. Whatever was going to happen in Yorkshin city wasn't going to be a walk in the park, so she had to brace herself for the worst. All kinds of demons were going to gather together, and she had to be strong enough to come face to face with them. The countdown to their long awaited reunion had already started.

* * *

**[Shameless advertisement ahead]** Also, I started writing a new Demon AU fanfic on Hunter x Hunter. You can check it out if you have time (yes please check it out!). It's called 'Into your World'.


	20. Departure

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 19**

_Departure_

_..._

"_Here you go, Himeko-sama, I've marked your previous assessment. Please review your mistakes." __Her teacher handed her the previous test she did. _"_There isn't much to look over anyway." He told her before she started looking through the few tests she did. She got a 89, 85 and a 87, which were pretty good marks to say the least. Her grades were pretty much expected as she would usually get something in the eighties, but her grades weren't enough for her. _"_I showed these results to your mother first, and she looked a little disappointed. I gave your brother the same tests when he was your age, but he achieved one 99 and two full marks." Her teacher kept rubbing salt on the wound, and it didn't help her one bit. The whole clan knew that her brother was smarter than her, so she didn't need a constant reminder from her teacher. Knowing that she'll have a mother-daughter talk later that night, she also had to mentally prepare herself for that too._

"_I'll review the test tonight. Please give me another copy of the same test, I'd like to do it again." She requested after putting her previous test papers away safely. Himeko would usually end up doing all her tests twice, once in the classroom with her teacher, and then by herself after reviewing the topic again. Her teachers did appreciate her enthusiasm, but her parents weren't pleased to heard that it took her two tries to get a perfect score._

"_Fine, I brought a spare copy since you always request one." He said, handing her a spare copy. "We will learn cellular biology in more depth today. I've taught you the basics a couple years ago, but we will go in depth with all the different organelles today. I've brought a reference book on it today, so please read through it when you have time. Your mother mentioned that your dance class was cancelled today, so you can just read through the book during that time."_

_Her teacher handed her an advanced book on cellular biology. Normally children would learn about this at the age of sixteen or seventeen, but Himeko at this point was only seven. For her it was hard to keep up with all this advanced biology, chemistry and physics. She also had to juggle mathematics with those three subjects, where she started learning advanced trigonometry. Not only was she tutored in the core subjects, she also had to take lessons in world history and geography. As if those will help her, it's not like she'll ever be allowed to leave their estate anyway; or that was what she thought at that point. Additionally, she also received traditional dance lessons, and singing lessons. It was tiring, but she tried to keep up as she didn't want to lose to her brother. She wanted to show her brother that you could study as much as he did, but also pay attention to people important to you. _

"_I'll be sure to read through it tonight," she assured him, putting the heavy textbook to one side of the table. Although one of her lessons ended up being cancelled, she still had to study during that period. There wasn't much she could do, except trying to cope with whatever her mother told her to do. A break was something she rarely got. "Let's finish this topic by today, so I can revise everything tonight and have a test tomorrow, before we move on."_

"_If that's what you'd like, I'll be sure to do so." __Himeko sat in the room, listening to her teacher talking about cells and details about its organelles. She drew diagrams of each organelle, before annotating their parts and then writing down their functions. __Two hours past, and her teacher started packing. Her Biology lesson was done, and now it was going to be her brother's turn. She packed up her own belongings, before her brother could arrive. As she walked out of the study room, her brother arrived along, with Sebastian who was his personal butler._

"_Good day," she politely greeted her brother, while bowing her head ever so slightly, but he just gave her a slight nod. Himeko walked cleared the way so her brother walk in and begin his lesson. That was it, that was their daily conversation. A simple hello, and a slight nod was all they say whenever they ran into each other. She sighed and left, having ten minutes left until her chemistry class started, so she went to her room to drop of her books. She then walked towards the other study room where her teacher would be in a short while. Walking past the garden area, she tried hard not to look at her cousins who were happily playing without a care in the world. It reminded her of the times she would be allowed to play with them and her brother._

_While deep in thought, she was suddenly snapped out at the sound of her cousin's voice, _"_Himeko-sama, could you please pass us the ball?" She look down, and noticed a ball slowly rolling towards her feet. Deep inside, she knew this was going to be a bad idea, but seeing how she hesitated, her cousins began whispering. Himeko was too far away to hear anything they were saying, but she was smart enough to realise that they were whispering something about her. No matter how nice her cousins acted towards her, deep inside she always had this gut feeling that those smiles were fake, and that they despised having to play with her. It was probably due to the clan's favouritism towards her and Hakuryuu, but there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Eventually, she gave into the pressure, bent down to pick up the ball and was just about to pass the ball back to her cousins._

"_Himeko!" She got startled as she heard a sharp, ear-piercing voice. Judging by the voice, she knew who it was, but she still looked up into her mother's eyes, hoping that she'd believe her words. "Your class is going to start in three minutes, and you're still here playing around?"_

"_Mother, this isn't what you think it is," she tried her best to defend herself, "I was just going to give their ball back." _

"_Nonsense!" Himeko's excuse was no where good enough for her mother, "Your cousins have two hands and legs just like you, they are capable of picking their ball up themselves. Do you think you have time to pass the ball to them? Your grades are no where near your brother's, yet you still want to fool around? Why don't you go to your class three minutes early and learn something in those three minutes instead of wasting them?"_

_Her head hung low, _"_Yes, mother." She couldn't talk back to her mother, and no matter how innocent she was, she was still guilty in her mother's eyes. If her first attempt to prove her innocence wasn't working, nothing with work._

"_I need to have a talk with you tonight, your father is also getting concerned now." Those words were enough to indicate how badly she was doing according to her mother. __Her mother finally left, but Himeko didn't lift her head. Her hands were still tightly around the ball, waiting for her mother to be completely out of sight before she could lift her head._

_Once her mother was gone, her cousin ran up to her and started to apologise,_ "_Himeko-sama, I'm really sorry. It was all my fault, I shouldn't have asked you. I won't do it again, please forgive me!"_

"_Don't worry about it," Himeko replied, handing her the ball. "I'll be off now._

Himeko woke up as soon as her dream was over. The shadow caused by the rising sun outside was enough to indicate that it was morning, so she turned to the clock on her table to check the time. It was four o'clock, and today was going to be her last day of training, before she headed off to Yorkshin. Although she couldn't wait to meet everyone again, she couldn't help but feel saddened by the fact that she had to leave the dojo that day. Sensei took her under his wing when she had no where left to go, and the three boys did everything possible to make her stay comfortable. Before she was going to leave, she wanted to leave an impression on everyone. She had no idea when she was going to return; if anything it could take years to find her brother, and Toshiro and the others might have set off for their own journey if she returned too late. The thought of her possibly never seeing them again made her heart drop; she started to feel really empty all of the sudden.

Although it was four o'clock, she decided to wake up and get ready to train. She would usually wake up around five o'clock, while the boys woke up around four thirty, and that was the sole reason she was always the one to clean the dojo in the mornings. After cleaning her own room, she left to go to the kitchen. Walking down the empty hallways made her realise how surprisingly big the dojo really was. If didn't feel so large whenever she was accompanied by someone, but now that no one was awake yet, the dojo did feel different. It was the first time she managed to wake up before everyone else in the past months, and seeing how empty the large dojo was in the mornings made her realise that the people at the dojo made it feel more homely.

Once she got to the kitchen, she started searching around for some pots and pans to prepare breakfast. It was her last day after all, so she at least wanted to make them breakfast to show how grateful she was for letting her stay for so long. Unlike a lot of dojo's, Sensei didn't ask his students to pay him, and neither did they ever ask her to pay for food or the room she was staying in. Half an hour later, she started hearing shouting noises from the boys' room.

_"It's so noisy in the mornings, how did I manage not to wake up before?"_ She wondered, being able to hear Toshiro's loud voice from rooms away. Either way, she woke up before them today, so one of them had to do the clean-up duty. She grabbed the bucket and washcloth, before marching straight to their room. However, once she arrived at their door, she stopped. Whatever the boys were arguing about sounded pretty serious this time around, and she gave it a quick thought on whether it was appropriate to barge inside.

"You fucking idiot, you can't do anything right!" Toshiro was the first one to tear the door open, after ending his rant. He seemed to have shouted at either Natsume or Haruko, as neither of them were talking back and were waiting for him to calm his nerves. Even Natsume who got pleasure in provoking Toshiro was quiet, waiting for him to settle down. He stopped and looked down, seeing Himeko grinning with a red bucket and washcloth in her hands.

"Clean up duty," she sung, with a wide smile on her face. The three boys turned to each other, not being able to believe that the tables had finally turned. It did however take a long time for her to turn the tables around, she the trio expected not to do clean up duties until she was gone, but they were wrong. They all tried recalling who was the last to wake up out of all three of them, wanting to find the easiest target to throw under the bus.

"Why don't we let Kou decide?" Haruko suggested, seeing how none of them could come up with a solution by themselves. They took a while to try and remember who treated Himeko the worst after eventually agreeing that she should make the final call. Himeko spent a while analysing every single one of them, wanting to raise their blood pressure by creating suspense.

"You will all do it today!" She eventually announced. "Don't forget the front and backyard!" After hearing her answer, the three just sighed and walked out of their room to start working. Himeko went back to the kitchen where she continued to make breakfast. She was never the best cook, but Haruko taught her how to cook some basic dishes, and thanks to him, she improved just a little. After doing a taste test, she was pretty happy seeing how her dishes turned out and then set them aside. She then took the dishes, bowls and cups to the dining room and started setting up the table.

"Ah, you're surprisingly early today." Sensei was the first one to arrive, and quite surprised to see who was preparing the breakfast.

"Yep, I managed to wake up first!" She grinned proudly, gesturing him to take a seat and begin eating. "Please help yourself to breakfast." Sensei smiled, before sitting down and helping himself to a serving of rice, while Himeko gave handed him a bowl of miso soup and a fish. She then sat down and served herself. Half an hour later, the three boys rushed in, pushing each other through the door, following the scent of food. They took a quick look at Sensei and Himeko eating and helping themselves to an nth portion of food, before they decided to join them.

Toshiro was the first one to open the rice pot, only to be shocked at the tiny amount of food that was left for all three of them, "There's only one portion left each."

"Survival of the fittest, bitches!" Himeko mumbled with a full mouth, taking Natsume's words right out of his mouth. Natsume just smiled proudly, before he helped himself to a big portion of rice while Toshiro and Haruko were fighting for the spoon. The pair let go of the spoon, seeing how Natsume was able to sneakily get his hands on the last portion of rice and was casually shoving it down. Before Natsume could even lay his hands on the sides, Toshiro took hold of the only whole, grilled fish left on the table while Haruko grabbed the last bowl of miso soup.

Himeko ignored the ruckus at the table and just continued to eat her own food. Once she was done, she left the dishes behind for the boys to wash, "Thank you for the food," she said and was now the second person to leave the table, after Sensei. While Toshiro was still eating whatever was left at the table, she slowly headed to the training room where she was going to have her final _Nen_ lesson with Toshiro. This was it, so she had to make the most out of it. _"I'm really going to miss this place,"_ she thought to herself. She was happy about seeing her friends again, but at the same time, she didn't want to leave the dojo. Knowing that her mentor was going to take his time, she decided to use the time efficiently by doing some morning meditation to prepare her for the day ahead. "Toshi-sensei, you're late!" She exclaimed, as soon as she sensed Toshiro's aura entering the training room. "Ten laps around the dojo," she ordered.

"Ten laps?" He questioned confusedly, wondering whether his own student was actually giving him orders.

Seeing how slow his reaction was, Himeko changed her mind. "Let's make it twenty then!" Knowing that the sum would double again if he didn't hurry, Toshiro rushed out, leaving Himeko to continue meditating in silence. Fifteen minutes later, Toshiro managed to finish his twenty laps and return. Upon his return, Himeko stood back up and waited to hear her final challenge.

"It's your last lesson today," he said, with a hint of sadness in his voice. Though he tried to hide it with his resting poker face, he wasn't doing a good job. Himeko could immediately tell how upset he was about this being the last time of him training her, and seeing him, she couldn't help but feel saddened too. However, despite his upset tone, he looked rather proud of how far not only Himeko, but the two of them had come over the past few months. Himeko was his first student after all, and although he despised the idea of teaching at first, she had exceeded his expectations greatly. "I will test you today, let's see if you can keep up." With these words, their training started. Unfortunately, she didn't have enough time to develop her _Hatsu_, but she greatly developed _Ten, Zetsu_ and _Ren_ compared to when she first started. Since she had the basics down, Toshiro was confident in her abilities to create a strong _Hatsu_ without his assistant. Himeko could be a lost cause sometimes, but he knew how bright she could really be if she really put her mind to it. _"She came far since when we first met,"_ Toshiro thought, not just remembering the time he found her unconscious in the forest, but also when she was just a little child. The little Himeko from back then wasn't able to stand up for herself, but no matter how dependant she was on others, she refused to accept their help. She was somewhat selfish in a way, not trusting anyone who looked remotely different than her, but he saw how she matured into a more open minded individual.

Toshiro was more focused on recalling how much his student had improved and didn't bother paying much attention to the actual fight. Himeko concentrated her _Ren_ into her first, before striking Toshiro in the stomach. Due to the sudden impact, he fell down, crouching on his knees. "Payback for when we first met!" She grinned, proudly showing him a peace sign. After training for months and finally polishing her skills, she was finally able to do what she said she would do back in the forest. When Sensei said it was impossible for her to beat Toshiro, she swore that one day she would become strong enough to do just that.

"You little bitch," Toshiro muttered, stumbling on his feet. "I won't hold back now!"

"Oh, really?" she cockily raised her brows, before provoking him even further. "Why don't you try beat me, asshole?" The fight ended with Toshiro winning of course. No matter how strong she was now, she couldn't beat someone who trained for a lot longer than her. However, she was able to keep up with him all this time, which was an improvement to how she handled one-on-one fights with him in the past.

"Good job!" He congratulated her at the end of his training session, proudly patting her head, "You have herby completed Toshiro's special training." Though he was quite upset about leaving at first, he managed to get his legs to walk out of the training room so Haruko could begin his training session. Upon entering, Haruko noticed a slightly disappointed look on Toshiro's face.

"Looks like you gave Toshi a hard time!" He commented after seeing Toshiro walk out. Haruko somehow knew how he felt. Natsume and Toshiro weren't the most expressive when it came to these kind of things, and neither did they know how to react to these kind of situations. With Himeko joining them, they felt a pressure to be the perfect role model to her. They thought expressing themselves would show how weak they truly were, so they remained emotionless. Haruko on the other hand has felt the same pressure for a long time having both Toshiro and Natsume look up to him, so he could relate. Not wanting to waste any more time, he turned to Himeko to start her training. "Let's see how far you got with your control. How about I give you a little test as your last lesson?"

"A test?" She questioned, curious at what he meant by that. She watched Haruko gathered a lot of bricks together and stacked them up in a few, neat piles. He then told Himeko to stand in front of the first stack of bricks. Each stack consisted of ten bricks.

"I want you to break the first five," he told her. She had to break half of them, without breaking the other half. Then he continued to test her, making her break a certain number of bricks, while leaving the others untouched. It sounded a lot easier than it actually was. It required quite a lot of concentration, which was why the large training room was in utter silence while she was doing the task. Compared to Toshiro's task though, his challenge didn't take too long to do. Before she knew it, she was done, and although she had never done this task before, she managed to perform it without fail. "Congratulation kiddo, you are now good enough to graduate!" He said proudly, as he started to clean up the mess made by the broken bricks. "But, promise me to take care and not do anything reckless."

"I'll try my best to stay out of trouble," she smiled to reassure him, "but if I'm with my friends, then I can't promise anything!" Her carefree attitude certainly did cheered him up a little, but he still felt a little worried. The fact that her friends were with her did manage to lift some of the worries off his shoulders, especially after hearing how talented some of them were. However, he couldn't shrug off this bad feeling that Himeko was indeed going to do something reckless. He decided to ignore it for now, and helped her clear the broken pieces of bricks off the ground.

Once Haruko was gone, Himeko prepared herself for the real challenge. Natsume walked into the room, looking a lot more serious than usual. He seemed to have two katana blades in his hands, and ended up throwing one towards her, which she managed to catch. "Get on your guards, we are starting immediately!" He instructed, and with no further warning, he rushed in to attack. She could never fool around when it came to training with Natsume, which was why she was always on her guard around him. Natsume was the type to corner you, so you run out of all options to fight back, something she liked but also hated about him. "You've gotten faster," he commented, but knowing that she wasn't in the position to have a conversation with him, Himeko didn't say anything back. "But you left an opening." He swung his katana to attack her opening, but to defend herself she used her own katana. Somehow, she was able to break his blade, and Natsume momentarily stared at his broken katana before throwing it away. "Didn't know we could use _Nen_!"

"Nen?" She asked. Though she didn't expect to break his katana, she certainly didn't use her _Nen_ against him.

"You mean you just cut my katana by accident?" He questioned her in surprise. "Didn't Toshi teach you any of the advanced _Nen_ techniques yet?" He wasn't really surprised at the fact that Toshiro didn't teach her the advanced techniques, but by the fact that she was able to use _Shu_.

"Advanced techniques? I thought there was only _Ten, Zetsu, Ren_ and _Hatsu_!" She started to panic, now knowing that her _Nen_ training wasn't fully complete. "Was there more to learn?"

"Calm down, as long as you know the first three basics, you can develop the advanced techniques easily!" He tried to calm her down again. "You already know how to use Gyo according to Toshi."

"Gyo?"

"It's an advance application of _Ren_ where you focus in one body part. You can enhance _Gyo_ further to do _Ko_ and _Ryu_. By concentrating your _Ren_ in just one body part, and stopping the flow of _Nen_ in the other body parts by using _Zetsu_, you can produce a much stronger attack than by just using _Ren_ or _Gyo_. However, the other body parts will be completely defenceless, so you should be careful. That is _Ko,_ and _Ryu_ is pretty much the same thing, but instead of offence, you strengthen one part of the body for just defence." He continued to briefly explain the advance techniques, knowing that with enough practice she'd be able to develop them on her own, just like she did with _Shu_. "Toshi probably didn't teach you because you would eventually develop these techniques yourself."

"So, what I did right now..."

"Right, you used _Shu, _it's an advanced application of _Ten_. You extended your aura into the katana to increase the strength of your attack. It's very useful when using a weapon to fight, but I didn't know you'd learn it so quickly," he continued to explain. "But now that you've learnt it, you can practice using it right now. I have a sudden urge to use _Nen_ during today's practice." Natsume walked towards the side, where he took the katana that was hanging on the wall before charging at her. He somehow found enjoyment in fighting, which Himeko never really understood. The only reason she wanted to become stronger was to prepare for whatever was ahead of her, but she never particularly liked to fight. Maybe it was just his 'beast' side that made him enjoy getting an adrenaline rush during battle. Either way, it was their last training session, but he still went all out until their training session was over. "We are done," he announced an hour later. "You've become a lot stronger than before, but that's no excuse to stop training. You can take that katana with you, so I expect you to continue training everyday."

She was rather surprised to receive a katana as a graduation gift from him, especially since he cherished all the weapons at the dojo. Nonetheless, she happily accepted it, knowing that it would come in use during the journeys that lied ahead. "Osu!"

"Okay, go and take a bath! I'm going to go and help the others cook, and make sure you pack your bag since you'll be leaving tonight." With that, Natsume left to the kitchen to cook, while Himeko went to take a bath. At the dinner table, everyone was eating in silence. There were no silly, little arguments and no insults, just everyone eating dinner in an unusual, neat and tidy manner.

"How did your training go today?" Sensei asked, breaking the silence inside the room. Although he didn't like the usual noise level at the dinner table, he couldn't help but find the silence out of place.

"She's improved a lot," Haruko was the first one to answer, knowing that everyone would agree with his answer. "I'm not the only one who thinks so, Toshi and Natsu have also seen her grow a lot."

"That's good to hear. At least you are less likely to die out there now," Sensei laughed wholeheartedly, at his own, cruel joke. He then went on to finally congratulate her, "You can finally call yourself a Hunter now."

"A Hunter?" She started at him in confusion, not sure what he meant by that. "But I passed the exam a couple of months ago." That was when she remembered some of Sensei's first words when they first met; 'you are not a real Hunter'. So what exactly made her a 'real' Hunter now? She just became a little stronger than she was before, but there were people like Killua, Hanzo, Hisoka and Illumi who were already very strong to begin with.

"That's right!" Toshiro said, before he proceeded to explain the procedures that would take place after the official Hunter exam. "But you are now a Pro Hunter. You can now go and accept jobs unlike before. Learning _Nen_ is a requirement to become a Pro, and you are a Pro Hunter now." So in other words, after passing the official exam, everyone had to pass an unofficial exam in order to call themselves a real Hunter. Although it was slightly sneaky for the Hunter Association to not mention anything about this, she did eventually accept that it was part of the challenge to find a good mentor who would be willing to teach them _Nen_.

"Congrats!" Natsume exclaimed, giving her a round of applause to congratulate her for being an official Hunter. He moved up, making some space for her to sit down before gesturing her to sit besides him.

"To celebrate, Toshi bought a cake!" Haruko announced, trying to brighten up the mood further. After all, it was Himeko's last night at the dojo and he wanted her to enjoy herself before she leaves. Sitting in silence and waiting for time to pass was something he didn't want to do, and he certainly didn't want her to leave with her head hanging low.

But at the mention of his name, Toshiro started yelling at Haruko in embarrassment, "You idiot, you weren't meant to mention my name!"

"I was meant to buy it yesterday, but I kinda forgot," Natsume confessed while sheepishly rubbing his neck. "Toshi was hella angry at me in the morning."

"So that's what the ruckus was about," she said, after recalled hearing Toshiro's loud voice all morning. "I was a little surprised to hear his sudden outburst so early in the morning!"

"Yeah, but he went and got a cake while you were training with me and Natsu!" Haruko added in the same sheepish tone as Natsume, before giving the shy, and embarrassed Toshiro a pat on his back.

"Quit being such a tsundere, and get the cake Toshi!" Natsume used the opportunity to begin bossing Toshiro around again. "Last time I had cake was for Haru's birthday." But for some odd reason, Toshiro just sighed in defeat and obediently went to get the cake from the kitchen without talking back to him. It was a reasonably sized, chocolate cake with 'congratulations' written on it in, bold, blue letters. Since he got the cake last minute and didn't order one beforehand, it wasn't the best cake the cake had to offer, but nonetheless Himeko was still overjoyed to see how much the boys really cared about her. After eating the cake, Himeko went to her room to check whether she packed everything. She got her bag, and the katana that Natsume gave her earlier on, before she headed outside where everyone was waiting for her. It was finally time for her to say her goodbyes.

"Don't be reckless out there!" Toshiro was the first one to give her a piece of advice, and he continued to warn her about all the dangers that could out in a big city such as Yorkshin. Especially during the auctions, all kinds of shady characters travel around the city, and there were a lot of cases of children going missing. Although she was too strong to get kidnapped by ordinary men, they still couldn't help but worry since she was just a child.

"Make sure to eat well, and don't get involved with weird people," Haruko was the second one to give her his share of warnings, before he embraced Himeko as the big brother figure he always imagined himself to be. This being the last time he could act like a weirdo, Himeko didn't say anything and hugged him back in response, trying to reassure him that she'd be fine.

"Yeah, and don't cheat on me while you're out in the city. I know it might be tempting after seeing city boys, but remember, I'm still better looking than them!" Natsume started to brag, before Haruko proceeded to hit him on the head as per usual. "Be careful!"

They all exchanged their final words, and eventually it was finally Himeko's turn. "Thank you for everything," she thanked them, but she knew that those weren't weren't nearly enough to thank them. "Take care everyone!" When no one else was replying to her, she decided to pick up her bag and got ready to depart, but she stopped in her tracks after hearing Sensei's voice.

"Himeko, I don't think you're understanding something here." Sensei pointed out to her, knowing very well that she felt awkward returning to the dojo in the future. "Once you become a student at my dojo, you'll always belong here. This is your home to return to, I expect you to come back!"

Hearing his response, she couldn't help but smile and feel somewhat glad that she finally found a place where people would openly welcome her again. "In that case, I guess I'll see you all again." She left the dojo with a smile that evening, and followed the instructions on her Hunter tablet to safely guide her to Yorkshin city.

A couple of days passed since Himeko's departure from Kioto, but she still hasn't found a way to get in touch with her friends. Meanwhile, Gon, Killua and Leorio have already met up and were in a shop, buying new phones for all three of them. "We should buy one for Kou too!" Gon suggested, knowing that she was using a very old phone with not many features during the Hunter exam.

"Yeah, good idea!" Leorio said, before turning to the sales assistant. "Sir, give us one more." While Leorio was busy trying to lower the price of all four phones, pointing out that he was buying more than just one piece and mentioning that the same phone was a lot cheaper in other stores, Killua had his own doubts he wanted to express to his friends.

"How are you so sure she'll come back anyways? She didn't reply to us after she arrived at her clan," he pointed out, not being able to recall the last time she actually messaged them. "She might even not leave now that she's got a family to look after her." The last time Himeko did contact them was when she was back at the Inoue clan, and back then she stated how happy she was with them. Gon and Leorio might find it hard to understand, but since Killua was from a wealthy background just like her, he thought of the possibility of Himeko never coming back. Though he was rich, the fact that she was blue blooded set the two apart. Being from a noble clan meant that she had servants at her feet, fulfilling her every wish, so what was the need for her to wander around like an orphan anymore? She didn't even need the benefits that came with the Hunter license, the Inoue clan was powerful and capable enough to do most of the things that required a license. It could be because he wasn't too close to her, or maybe because he knew that she always had two faces, there was a part of him that didn't want to believe in her.

"I'm sure because Kou promised to meet us again," Gon was confident in his answer. "She won't break the promise, I know for sure!" He seemed pretty stubborn and there was no point for Killua to try and change his mind, because at the end of the day Gon would always have his own way of thinking. Gon did have a lot more trust in Himeko, but then again, he was also much closer to her than he was. You never know, she might decide to leave her luxury life style in order to see Gon, Kurapika and Leorio; or that was what Killua thought.

"If you say so, then I guess we have no choice than to wait for a few more days," Killua sighed, hearing Gon's stubborn answer. "If she did decide to join us, she might have ended up on the other side of the world with her navigation skills!"

"Now, now, brat! Just because you grew a little, and became a tiny bit stronger over the past months doesn't mean you can look down on others. Who knows, Kou might have grown a lot taller and stronger than you now," Leorio pointed out, and laughed when Killua finally realised the possibility of Himeko being taller, and stronger than him. If she did train with the Inoues, she would have had all the money in the world to hire the very best Hunters to teach her _Nen_.

However, their laughter was interrupted by a sudden scream outside on the streets. Hearing the cry for help, the trio rushed outside the phone shop and found a woman on the ground. "Thief!" she cried yet again, and seeing how she was struggling to stand back up, Leorio was the first one to rush to help her back up, followed by Gon and then Killua.

"Are you okay?" Gon asked, helping the middle aged woman back on her feet.

She pointed ahead, at a man dressed in all black running away at full speed, "That man pushed me down and stole my bag!"

Seeing how the thief wasn't too far ahead of them, Gon's sense of justice immediately began tingling and he prepared to run after the robber, pulling Killua with him. "Quick Killua, we have to run after him!"

Killua who was being dragged by Gon eventually started slowing down, trying to slow down Gon while he was at it. Gon confusedly looked at his friend, wondering why he was letting the thief get away, and Leorio who was able to catch up to them eventually was equally as confused as Gon, wondering why they had suddenly stopped running. "We don't have to run after him," Killua said, pointing in the direction the man was running towards. "Look!" After Killua pointed it out for them, the two were finally able to spot a young man, dressed in traditional japanese garbs, and his face covered with a kabuki mask.

"A samurai?" Leorio asked, seeing a person in the distance. He couldn't really believe his eyes, seeing a samurai in the twenty-first century. It was way too early for carnival, or halloween too, so Leorio wondered whether he was actually a real samurai.

"Samurai?" Gon asked, having never heard of that unfamiliar term before.

"Samurais were men from a powerful military caste in the eastern part of the world back in the days, but I never knew they'd still exist." Killua explained, while Gon watched the samurai in awe. The young man wore a black hakama, along with a white keikogi. He wore his long hair in a ponytail, and had a red, kabuki mask covering his face. Not just that, Killua was also the first one to spot the sword around his waist.

Gon was still in awe at the sight of the cool looking soldier, "Wow, a samurai!"

"You've never watched samurai movies?" Killua asked, knowing that Gon would have at least watched some movies in his life.

"Nope!" He shook his head innocently, before explaining that he would rather explore Whale island than stay at home and watch movies on their small, boxy TV. The trio continued to watch the samurai casually walk past the thief. "Did you see that, Killua?"

"Yeah, he is fast!" He replied as he continued to watch the scene intently. "That thief probably hasn't even realised that the purse is gone."

But when the thief did eventually notice the missing handbag, he turned around and called out the samurai who walked past him a couple of seconds ago. "Hey, you!" He said, pointing at the man, dressed in the japanese attire, "You stole the handbag off me." When he didn't hear a response back from him, he ran towards the samurai, taking out small, pocket knife to attack.

"Watch out, mister!" Gon exclaimed, wanting to warn the samurai of the incoming attack.

However, he already expected the attack and waited for the right moment to kick the thief between his legs. The thief fell to the ground, holding his manhood while groaning in pain. The samurai just walked past him, giving him a polite warning, "Don't try and piss me off!"

With the thief defeated on the ground, the woman found energy to run past Gon, Killua and Leorio to the mysterious samurai to express her gratitude. "Thank you, mister!" He nodded in acknowledgement, before handing her the handbag. But that was when the woman noticed something about about this man.

* * *

**A/n -** I'm kinda sad now that she left the dojo, but yay, Yorkshin city arc will start from the next chapter onwards. Also, I decided to introduce a new character while Kou is still finding her way to Yorkshin city. Any ideas on who he might be?


	21. Reunion

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 20**

_Reunion_

...

"Thank you, mister!" The middle aged woman was the first person to run up to the mysterious samurai, and thank him. He handed her the small, branded handbag and nodded as a response. But now that she was examining him from a much closer distance, she noticed something odd about him. "You know, you are a lot shorter now that I look at you close-up," she pointed out, now trying to guess his age. From up close, the man suddenly looked a lot more like a young boy, so she guessed that he might have been a teenager.

While the woman was still trying to uncover the identity of the mystery boy, the samurai heard a loud, cheerful voice coming his way. "Wow, you were really fast back there, mister!" Gon couldn't help but compliment the young samurai on his speed, not expecting him to get the woman's bag off the thief so easily. Watching the whole scene from afar made it look much cooler, and Gon's curiosity couldn't help but be triggered by him. Along with Gon, Killua and Leorio also decided to join, wanting to know more about the out of place samurai. However, seeing the three boys approach him suddenly caught his attention, and he too decided to walk past the lady, towards them.

"He's coming towards us!" Leorio pointed out, as he was the first one to stop walking out of the trio. The three remained calm, waiting for the samurai to get to them, but it all changed as soon as they saw the samurai grab the katana tied around his waist.

Seeing this, Killua was instinctively the first one to get on his guard after coming to the conclusion that he wasn't a friend, but a foe. "Shit, he's getting ready to attack!" He cursed, before getting into a defensive position. Gon on the other hand managed to remain calm, not wanting to jump to any conclusions just yet, while Leorio started to panic after seeing the look on Killua's face. He knew a potential fight could break out at any moment, but seeing how they were in Yorkshin city at such an inconvenient season, he knew that drawing attention was the last thing they should do. You never know, this samurai might just belong to some sort of underground gang and messing with them would be bad news.

Leorio knew that he had to start calming Killua down so he didn't start an unnecessary argument in the middle of the street. Although he trusted Killua to make these kinds of decisions himself, knowing that he was smart enough to know what situation he was in, he still didn't want to risk anything. "No need to provoke him further, Killua!" He tried to keep peace, but soon the samurai drew his katana and got ready to strike.

Killua was the first person to step forth, making sure both his friends were safely behind him. "Stay back, I'll handle this one," he instructed, waiting for the sword to come close enough so he could try countering the attack by breaking the blade. However, as soon as Killua prepared to stop the attack, the katana stopped midway, and the now amused samurai bursted out into laughter. Killua stood there, dumbfounded by his actions just waiting for him to eventually continue his attack, but he didn't. He turned back to look at his friends in utter confusion, hoping that they'd have an answer to this odd behaviour.

Upon noticing the surprisingly high-pitched laughter, Gon was the first one to point out how strangely familiar that voice was. "That voice, I think I know who it belongs to!" He said, and straight after that, both Leorio and Killua also managed to solve the mystery of the little samurai. Just then, the samurai put the katana back in its sheath before removing the kabuki mask covering their face.

They anticipated for the reveal of who was actually hiding behind that mask, only to see very familiar smile, "What's up?"

"Kou?!" Both Gon and Leorio exclaimed in surprise, while Killua was still left awestruck at the unexpected turn out. The last thing all three of them expected was for her to turn up in that attire, let alone decide to prank them like that. It was apparent how strong she must have gotten over the months, just looking at how confidently she was standing in front of them. Not only that, her speed and ability to use the katana were all and upgrade from the old Himeko. Who would have thought that the Himeko that left for the side clan would come back looking so simplistic, Killua especially expected her to come back looking more well kept and fattened up by all the good food she would have eaten. A frilly dress, bows in her hair, expensive jewellery and a large, designer travel bag were what they all expected her to return with, instead of the worn out clothes and cheap, souvenir mask.

"Oh my god, you should have seen your face Killua, it was hilarious!" Himeko continued to laugh her heart out, just looking at Killua's dumbstruck face. It wasn't exactly the best prank in the world, and she certainly didn't put much thought into it, but it did work out a lot better than she first expected. "You seem stronger, but you haven't changed one bit," she continued to laugh, now clutching onto her stomach. "Ouch, my stomach hurts!"

"What's with the outfit, Kou?" Leorio asked out of curiosity, "We really thought you were someone else."

"Ah, this?" She asked, while trying to control her laugh. "It's a really long story, but for now, let's just say that I lost my shorts and t-shirt, and that my dress became unusable. I wanted to pull a prank on you guys, so I bought a mask as a souvenir from Kioto." The fact that she wore loose clothing helped her hide her small frame, and from a far distance, she looked taller than she actually was, which the woman pointed out before. The fact that she didn't have a feminine figure also helped hide her identity, and the mask helped to cover her feminine facial features.

"Yeah, you got us real good!" Leorio admitted, starting to laugh the whole situation off as a joke. To be perfectly honest, Killua's surprised face and the way he got defensive all of the sudden were a pretty funny sight to see. Even Gon began laughing at his best friends misfortune, leaving Killua to fake laugh, hoping that they'd eventually forget about the whole incident all together.

"We've got a lot to talk about and I'm starving, so let's talk while having lunch!" Himeko suggested, realising that she hadn't eaten anything good in quite a long time. The boys at the dojo weren't exactly master chefs, so there weren't that many dishes they could make. Most of their food was pretty simplistic and traditional, but after a while the menu got quite repetitive. "But before that, let me go and buy something better to wear." They all took a moment to stare at what she was wearing. "I do look a bit out of place, huh?"

"Now that you mention it, you look like you came from a different era," Killua pointed out, before going on to state his actual opinion of the outfit. "The outfit lost it's coolness as soon as you removed your mask," he added bluntly. Himeko chose to ignore his unnecessary comment; Gon thought she looked cool, and she was sure that Killua thought the same thing until she revealed her real identity. But he did have a point, as soon as she removed her mask, she could feel everyone around her judge the way she was dressed. When her face was still covered, she didn't really care that much. She proceeded to scan the area for a clothing store, and looked around for one that fit her style and budget. Being quite a busy street in the heart of Yorkshin, many of the nearby stores were expensive boutiques, and quite a lot of other stores had more girly pieces of clothing that she didn't like. Eventually she managed to find a reasonably priced store and dragged the boys along, making them wait as she looked through the selections, trying them on one by one.

"Does this look good on me?" She asked them as she stepped out of the changing room. Seeing how out of it Leorio and Killua looked, she tried get a response out of them by spinning once with her white shirt, beige skirt combination, but neither of them looked particularly interested.

"That looks absolutely great on you, miss." The sales assistant started to compliment her with a fake, overly enthusiastic smile. "The neutral colours totally bring out your eyes."

Hearing the tone of her voice, Himeko began to take another look in the mirror, checking herself out from every angle. "Hmm… you really think so?" She still wasn't too sure about fact that it didn't suit her boy like, flat body. "I think it doesn't compliment my shape."

"Really? I think it looks great!" Gon said for the _nth_ time since they've first entered the store. He didn't really know what else to say as all the clothes looked great on her in his opinion, he didn't overanalyse her clothes like Himeko and the sales assistant or any other girl for that matter. However, Himeko just sighed and headed back into the changing room to change into the next set of clothes.

"It's usually just one boy suffering like this per girl. To think that there's a girl who'd make three guys suffer all at the same time," Leorio groaned in frustation. "If Kurapika was here, it would have been four guys waiting for one girl to finish shopping."

"Compared to this, the torture I suffered back home doesn't compare." Killua started whining, seeing as there was no end to Himeko's pickiness. She would always come up with the tiniest excuse to not buy a dress that looked pretty alright on her. "I used to be an assassin, but this is the worst torture I've experienced!"

"Yes, and to think that an ex-assassin would have to deal with things like this too."

"My old man always tells my mother to shop online for clothes. Now I understand why…" He came to realise the real meaning behind his parents' little lover's quarrels. While his mother would want to go out just like any other woman wanting to go out with her husband, his father was smart enough not to go with her, claiming it was unnecessary for her to step out of the house and allowing her to order whatever she liked online. While the two impatiently kept their eyes on the clock, Himeko stepped out once again, this time wearing a plain white dress similar to the one she wore during the Hunter exam.

Upon seeing this oddly familiar sight, Leorio was the first one to comment on it. "Now this sure brings back memories!" He said, as he started to recall a couple of dangerous situations they found themselves in back during the Hunter exams. To him it was still surprising that it had been nearly a year ago, and he still could't believe that he managed to pass and get admitted into medical school. To him, this all just felt like a very realistic dream he didn't want to wake up from.

"It does right?" Himeko agreed with a smile, before she turned a couple of times in front of the mirror. She too found it amazing how far they've all gotten since January, and although she saw her own reflection every single day, seeing her own reflection with that white dress on gave her a nostalgic feeling. Judging from the reflection in the mirror she could tell how much she had grown in the past couple of months, and looking back, she was almost proud of how far she had gotten.

"That dress suits you perfectly, as if it were made for you!" The sales assistant smiled, before adding yet another compliment to add to the good mood. "It's stunning!"

"What do you two think?" Himeko asked Gon and Killua who haven't contributed yet.

"I think all the clothes looked good on you to be honest," Gon commented quite honestly. "You looked pretty in all the clothes!"

"You really think so?" Himeko started to smile widely at Gon's compliment. "Maybe it's because I grew my hair out. People told me that I'd look pretty if I grew it out a bit longer." She was clearly referring to the time when Hanako told her to grow her hair out, since she thought it'll look good on her. Not only that, but Natsume told her so too once.

_"Hey Kou, do you like that Kurapika guy?" Natsume asked bluntly, making Himeko choke on her own saliva. "You always smile when you speak of him."_

_Hearing this sudden accusation being made, Himeko couldn't help but try to deny them all at once. "No, never, me and Kurapika? Pft!" She nervously chuckled to herself, "Well I'm just me, and Kurapika is smart, he's hella good looking, calm, cool and he just has the cutest smile ever. And well, although I'm just me, I'm also smart, not that bad looking, and have a very cute smile. Sometimes when I smile at myself in the mirror, I think to myself: 'damn, my smile is actually quite adorable!'" As she started rambling more, the point she was trying to make was clearly diverting in the opposite direction. Noticing that the answer to his question was quite obvious now, she remained quiet but couldn't stop herself from smiling._

_"I'm taking that as a yes then," Natsume concluded, seeing how her IQ managed to half at the mention of Kurapika's name. "He must be one hell of a hot guy to have someone like you turning your head, I mean I'm hot but that doesn't seem to affect you."_

_"Maybe because you aren't smart, calm, cool, and neither do you have a cute smile." She began comparing her mentor with Kurapika, and though she did initially get 'the Kurapika feels' from Natsume, he was nothing like her beloved Kurapika at all. Despite their age, nothing was actually similar between the two. Hearing all these insults from her, he proceeded to pout in disappointment. "But now that you mentioned it, what kind of girls do guys like?" She asked him curiously, using the topic to her advantage. Out of all three of her teachers, she always thought of Natsume as the love expert. Not that any of them had girlfriends, but maybe that was because none of them actually tried to get one. They seemed to have devoted their lives to the dojo, and training to control the beasts locked within them. However, she could picture not just Natsume, but all three of them walking down a busy street and turning at least a couple of heads from the opposite gender. She knew the three would easily be popular amongst girls, but they were all single by choice._

_Natsume thought hard about the question. Jokes aside, Himeko did want serious advice from him, not just from a guy's perspective, but also as an older brother figure. She couldn't exactly rely on Toshiro who had literally no game when it came to relationship despite being nineteen, while twenty-four year old Haruko would probably tell her that she was way too young to be talking about boys. "To be honest, it depends on the person. A lot of guys don't ask for much, they just want someone understanding and someone who's got a matching personality to theirs." He explained. "But I do know a lot of guys that like girls with longer hair. Maybe us guys are just simple minded like that, but a lot of us just want to run our fingers through our girls' hair."_

_Although Natsume just used that as an example, Himeko proceeded to take a look at her shoulder-length hair. After all, it was quite easy to maintain at that length, but now that she had a nice place to stay, maybe she could put a little effort into how she looked. She was never really too bothered by looks, let alone her own, almost as if she was sick of how focused everyone was by how someone had to look a certain way. Despite being from a homogenous clan, they surprisingly had their own standards off looks too. Someone who stood out, maybe with long, wavy hair, large, doe like eyes or even a voluptuous body would be three of many things that would set girls in the clan apart. In her case, her and her brother were often complimented on the small birth mark they had on their chin. Maybe she was just too used to everyone calling her good-looking as a child, she completely disregarded the desire to look pretty. But now that Natsume mentioned it, longer hair was often considered more feminine, while shorter hair could be considered quite childish and boyish. "Maybe I should grow my hair out too."_

_"You actually pull off the short hair quite well," Natsume pointed out, seeing how she was putting too much thought into her hair all of the sudden. "All guys are different, and honestly, once a guy gets over the looks they'd go more for the sense of humour, intelligence, kindness and little things like that," he proceeded to explain. "I just used the long hair comment as an example, but I'm sure someone like Kurapika wouldn't dwell too much about those things. You are a hard worker, he'll notice your efforts to do well more than your looks."_

_He tried his best to try and make her worry less about small things like this. Despite his reassurance, Himeko did decided to start growing out her hair again. In a way, she didn't just do it for a boy alone, she just wanted a change. There were some people who used a haircut as an opportunity to have a fresh start from a breakups, start of high school from middle school, transitioning into college, et cetera. Himeko first got her long hair cut after the traumatic experience from the research lab, but after repeatedly getting fired from multiple work places, she kept wanting a restart. Maybe growing out her hair was going to be a better way to start again, as a much more stronger and determined self.__ Whenever Natsume offered to cut her hair, she rejected the offers and only allowed him to adjust her front fringe, so it didn't grow out too much._

"No, it's not just because of the hair, I think you looked pretty before too!" Gon interrupted her thoughts. "It's because you're always so honest and always do your best!" Hearing this, Himeko started to smile at his honesty. Gon wasn't like most boys in her opinion, he saw past someone's looks and pasts, solely focusing on what kind of person they are. He was the only one who didn't doubt or even flinch once when Killua mentioned being an ex-assassin, having full trust in him being genuine about having chanced as a person. Though he was quite simple minded, and definitely not the brightest bulb out of the bunch, she couldn't help but respect him as a person. Maybe this was what Natsume meant about guys looking past someone's external appearance once they got to know them more.

"He is right, Kou!" Leorio started agreeing with Gon, reassuring that she didn't need to fix anything about herself to look better than she already did. "But the long hair does add to your charm, it's a nice change!" He commented, "It gives more of a rich girl vibe. It unexpectedly suits you quite well." She didn't know whether the last part was meant to be a compliment or an insult, but she still thanked him for his honest opinion. She did remember Leorio wondering why she always dressed so simple after knowing how rich her clan really was. Not just that, he also told her that the name Himeko didn't fit her as much as Kou, hence preferring to call her Kou rather than by her full name.

She turned to Killua who hasn't commented yet, waiting for him to add his opinion. Although she got this very bad feeling about asking him, knowing he would say something completely unnecessary, she still did it just for the sake of asking. There was nothing she held against Killua anymore, and maybe she should start treating him more like a friend, rather than just a friend's friend.

"Meh, they all look the same on you," he said, before going on to shock everyone around him with the rest of his comment. "After all, it's only your hair that grew. Your height and flat, washboard like chest remained the same as before." Killua's comment flustered the sales assistant, who would have never guessed to hear such a comment from a young boy, and Killua earned a punch on the head from Leorio, followed by a slap from Himeko, before Himeko went back into the changing room to change out of her clothes. In the end, Gon was the only one left trying to comfort Killua, although Gon was also criticising his bad choice of words, telling him that he deserved it.

"I'll buy this white dress!" Himeko said as she stepped out after folding the other clothes nicely. She handed the clothes she didn't want the sales assistant, and paid for the clothes she chose. Leorio and Killua let out a loud sigh of relief, knowing this torture was finally over, while Gon was waiting for her to finish paying, and helped her carry the shopping bags with other sets of clothes she chose to buy.

"Do you kids want to go and eat?" Leorio asked, now that they were finally outside the clothing store. "There is a good restaurant nearby, I'll treat you all." There were no objections from the other three as Leorio was paying, so he led the way to the restaurant he was talking about, where they were taken to their table by the waitress. After finally settling down, Leorio proceeded to ask the trio about training. Since he still hadn't gone through training himself, he was curious about what it was actually about and how hard the youngsters found it. "So, start talking guys!" He started the conversation, "What happened during your training period?"

"We both learnt _Nen_ from Wing-san," Gon started off answering his question, before going on to telling them about their experiences at Heaven's arena in more detail. "Also, we met Hisoka in the arena."

"Hisoka?!" Himeko and Leorio exclaimed in surprise. Sure, they knew they'd encounter him sooner or later, knowing about his creepy obsession with Gon, but not this early. The sudden mention of his name took them by surprise. "What happened after that?" The arena was obviously a place where people from around the world met up in order to determine who was the better fighter out of all of them, so it was also a hotspot for strong fighters. Hisoka being attracted to a place with skilled fighters was nothing new, but if Gon and Killua ran into him, there would be a high possibility of them having to fight him.

However, as they were anxiously waiting for an answer to their question, Gon responded with a proud smile. "I managed to return his tag from the Hunter exam." That reminded them of the deal Hisoka and Gon made during the fourth phase of the exam. Hisoka helped Gon during that phase, surrendering his badge to him, and although Gon didn't want to take it, he was forced to take it by Hisoka. Gon, being a stubborn person didn't want to use his Hunter license until he was strong enough to return Hisoka's tag. Hearing that he did manage to become strong enough to at least land a punch on Hisoka made them realise how much stronger he had gotten.

"Congrats, Gon!" Leorio started celebrating. "That means your training paid off after all!"

"Don't be so happy, I have a feeling that we'll be seeing him again real soon," Killua interrupted their little celebration. He had a good point, Hisoka always had the worst timings. He popped up whenever things just couldn't get any worse, and he also told Kurapika that he'd be coming to Yorkshin city during the auctions. The auctions were attracting all kinds of strong people to attend, and Hisoka wouldn't want to meet such an opportunity in this life time. They couldn't lower their guards, knowing how many dangerous people were lurking around the city.

"What else happened?" Himeko asked curiously, wanting to know more about Heaven's arena and all the challenges they could have faced there. But hearing that there was almost nothing else left to tell, she soon became quite disappointed.

"Well, after we reached the 200th floor, we just kept going." Gon continued to tell. "But that's pretty much all we did."

"Well, meeting Hisoka is an adventure itself!" Leorio pointed out, before moving on to the next person to tell her story. "What about you, Kou?"

"Nothing much, I guess," she started off, recalling how boring her time after the Hunter exam was. "I went to my clan, they planned to get me married to my cousin, so I openly objected. I ended up getting kicked out of the clan and fainted in the forest. I was then saved by a grumpy, old man who claimed to be owning a dojo. He said he'd take me in if I survived in a forest full of magical beasts for a week, and I nearly died in there. Then I was accepted and trained with a stubborn and bad tempered asshole, an overly attached weirdo and a sadistic psychopath who tried to kill me. That's all, nothing much."

Their jaws dropped, hearing the long list of things she did by herself. "We were so worried about you after I couldn't get hold of you, Kou!" Leorio said in a worried, yet slightly relieved tone. They all thought she was well off, getting pampered by her relatives in the side clan. There was a hint of disappointment from Gon and Leorio's side, seeing how she lied to them instead of just telling them that she was left all alone again. Leorio even mentioned that he would have let her stay with him while he was studying for his entrance exam, while Gon too said that she should have joined them and trained with Wing. The last thing they expected was for her to have such a hard time.

"Oh, my Sensei accidently broke my phone, and I didn't get a chance to buy a new one since I ended up training every day." She informed them, explaining why she couldn't get in touch with them. Hearing this, Gon's eyes started sparkling, before he took out a brand new phone from a box.

"It's a good thing we bought you a new phone then!" Gon beamed, handing her the beetle phone. She reluctantly took it off him and blankly started at the oddly shaped phone. "Anything wrong, Kou?"

"To be honest, I don't really like bugs!" She confessed bluntly, before putting the phone onto the table in front of her. "I can't really imagine carrying around a bug shaped phone."

"We can go and exchange it if you want a new one," Leorio offered. "We never really considered that, we just thought that it would be nice to have the same phone." Himeko however shook her head and turned their offer down, telling them that she'll deal with the bug-shaped phone. She didn't really want any of them to go through the trouble of returning the phone, especially after knowing how hard Leorio bargained for all four phones.

"It's better than having no phone at all," she shrugged, before putting the phone away in her new rucksack. "By the way Leorio, you are the only one who hasn't filled us in on what you did. How did everything go with you?"

"Well, I didn't do much, so my it's nothing particularly interesting compared to you three. You guys can virtually go ahead and write a trilogy, and people would buy it." He pointed out, having heard everything the youngsters had experienced over the past months. He was sure that Kurapika too went on a big adventure by himself before finding a job in Yorkshin. However, he couldn't help but answer her question with a victorious smile, "But I did pass the exam and the interview."

"That's great!" Gon cheered for him, now that at least he was one step closer to his initial goal.

Killua also congratulated him, "Yeah, congrats old man!"

"Ah, it feels nice to be reunited like this!" Gon exclaimed in joy to finally see everyone again after half a year, "We just need to find Kurapika." Hearing this, Leorio's face dropped a little at the mention of Kurapika's name.

"I tried calling him a few times since I got here, but he didn't answer," he confessed, showing his concern for the blonde teen. "He is quite reckless, so I hope he is okay." His words couldn't help but make Himeko worry too. Her face dropped when she heard Leorio's words, since he was sadly right. Despite being the smartest out of the group, Kurapika was quite reckless, especially when it came to the Spiders. He swore to fight them in Yorkshin city when he came across them, and although hardly any of them knew how strong the Phantom Troupe really was, they knew that Kurapika alone wouldn't be able to do much. He would just dig his own grave, and that thought itself was haunting her.

"Kurapika is smarter than you think," Killua interrupted their thoughts, knowing exactly what everyone around him was thinking. "He's probably the only one out of us who can think calmly, and rationally in a tough situation. Have some faith in him already!"

"I heard that he's mastered _Nen_ and managed to find a job too," Himeko suddenly remembered what Toshiro had told her. "He is probably busy with work, he did want to get a job so he can get affiliated with the underground auction. Since the auctions are getting closer, I'm sure he'll be busier, right?" She tried her best to deny the thoughts of Kurapika possibly being in some kind of difficult situation. Leorio wasn't confident enough to agree with her, and Gon was thinking deeply too. They all knew Kurapika too well, and experienced the hatred he had for the Phantom Troupe too well.

Killua was the only one who could keep a cool head, and he watched the three staring off into space. "He probably is busy with work, he'll contact us when he gets the time to." Killua tried to liven the mood up again, seeing how depressive the conversation had gotten all of the sudden. Just then, the waitress arrived to their table to take their orders. _"Talk about good timing!"_ Killua thought in relief.

"May I take your order?" She asked them all, flipping to a new page of her little notepad before noting down their table number. She decided to start from Leorio's end, working her way around the table.

"Yes, can I have todays special?" Leorio requested, and hearing his response, the waitress just gave him a polite nod before scribbling down his order. Gon who was rather indecisive decided to get the same thing as Leorio, and once again, the waitress decided to note down Gon's order before moving on.

"I want some steak!" Himeko was the next person to place her order. "I haven't eaten _real_ meat in ages. It's usually just rice, fish and miso soup or rice and curry. If I see fish one more time, I swear I'll go insane!"

Hearing this, Killua's playful side started to kick in. "Is that so?" Killua thought out loud, before proceeding to place his order, "Excuse me, can I have your best fish dish?"

Himeko raised her brow in response, knowing Killua was just trying to annoy her. "You're trying to pick a fight, aren't you?"

"Nope, I just felt like having fish today!" He shrugged before giving her a playful grin.

She blew her fringe in annoyance,_ "Jeez, how childish!" _Shortly after the waitress took their order, the food arrived. Himeko savoured every piece of meat she was eating, while the others just gave her a weird look. Killua followed her example, mainly to continue irritating her. After they've eaten their lunch, they ordered dessert because come on, Leorio was the one who was paying after all. During that time, Gon informed Himeko that Kurapika wasn't the only one who had business at the auction. He told her about his visit back home, where they found the old cassette tape left by Ging. Ging also left him a saved data for a game called Greed Island, which Ging took part in making. Gon thought that the game might have possible clues on his father's whereabouts. "Did you try and check on the net?"

"We tried searching the internet, and even went as far as offering a certain amount of money for anyone who had the game," Killua began to explain, "But somehow we ended up getting more replies than we thought we would. There are only a few copies of the game on the market."

"So, most of them were probably scams, trying to rip you off!" Leorio took the words right out of Killua's mouth.

"Precisely, and that's why we used our last resort," he continued to fill the pair in on every detail, "I asked my older brother for information."

"Older brother?" Himeko asked in surprise, as Illumi's face was the first one to pop into her mind, "The one from the Hunter exam?"

"No, I've got another fat one. He's good for nothing when it comes to assassination, but when it comes to anything tech related he is a genius. Of course, the title Greed Island caught his attention just like I thought it would. At this point, he'll be cooped in his room trying to get his hands on one of the copies." Killua predicted exactly what was happening back at the Zoldyck's estate. Milluki locked himself up in his room for days now, trying to find traces of the game Greed Island, so he could get his hands on a copy. "He was the one who told me it would be available in Yorkshin's auction."

"Must be one hell of a game to be sold at the auction!" Himeko pointed out, wondering what was so special about it. It was just another video game, so she didn't really understand what was so special about it. "How much is the starting price?"

"He said the bid will start around eight billion Jenny."

"E-eight billion?" She stuttered, thinking she didn't hear right. Killua said it as if it was just spare pocket change, it made her choke on her drink. "Is it made of gold or something? Even gold wouldn't cost that much!"

"That is the problem!" Leorio pointed out, as Gon and Killua avoided eye contact. "We are no where near the starting amount for the bid. We've been trying our best to make enough money before the auction starts."

"That's not the problem at all!" She interjected, recalling that the large sum was merely the starting bid for the piece of plastic. "It's eight billion Jenny, and that's just the starting bid. If this game is a collectors item, then people would go as far as bidding their lives on the game. We would need a lot more than eight billion if we really want a copy of that game."

Killua couldn't help but sigh at her reasoning, "She's got a good point."

"What about Heaven's arena?" She questioned the pair. Killua did say that Heaven's arena was a place to train but also make money, so if they reached the 200th floor, those two must have made at least a decent starting amount. "Didn't you two go there to train _and_ make money?"

"Well, you see, I still have the money I earned, but it's still not enough to buy Greed Island," Gon frowned, and hearing this, she then looked over at Killua, wanting to ask him what happened to his sum. Although he started off stronger than Gon, they were given the same training for _Nen_. Killua must have made at least the same amount of money as Gon, so he could just chip in some money to help his friend. But before she could direct the question at Killua, Gon answered it, throwing his best friend under the bus. "Killua spent all his money on chocolate."

"Gon, that was meant to be kept between us!" Killua began shouting at Gon. "And that wasn't just any chocolate, I bought Chocobots. There is a fine difference between the two!" After lecturing Gon, he turned to see both Leorio and Himeko who were sitting in front of the two boys, giving Killua a look of disapproval. "What's with the dirty look?" He asked, trying to defend himself. "I'm just trying to enjoy every moment of my boyhood!"

"How can you manage to spend millions on Chocobots, when Chocobots aren't even that expensive?!" Himeko yelled back at him, "I could buy several packets with my pocket change, so did you go and buy a whole factory with all that money? And you don't even have any left, how can someone be capable to eat that much? You are going to get diabetes at this rate!" While she was busy shouting her head off, Killua just blocked his ears, refusing to listen to logic.

"That's enough you two!" Leorio separated them when the argument was getting pointless. "We have to come up with a way to get at least eight billion Jenny. If we are lucky enough, no one will bid higher than that. There are seven copies going for sale after all."

"Have you started doing anything?" She asked them.

"Killua and I tried using Gyo to find antiques," Gon responded to her question, going on to explaining a technique they had learnt during _Nen_ training, "Wing-san told us once that _Geniuses_ use _Nen_ unintentionally, so many original artefacts will have an aura which we can spot using _Gyo_."

"That's actually quite smart!" She commented on the surprisingly well thought plan they had come up with. "There are quite a lot of markets out here, and most buyers won't know what's real and what's fake. If we get our hands on something valuable, we'd be able to sell it at an antique shop for a good price."

"We finally got someone who thinks in our group!" Leorio sighed in a relieved tone. He then proceeded to shoot a glare in Killua and Gon's direction, "Now, I don't have to worry so much about you two reckless brats."

"Have you guys gotten your hands on anything yet?" She asked out of curiosity.

"No, but we did bid on a couple of items already. If no one bids higher than us then they are ours."

"If that's so, then we should continue looking for more things. If we get lucky, we'll get a little closer to our target. But we'll have to come up with something else too just incase our plan doesn't work out."

"In that case, I'll leave the antique hunting to you three." Leorio interrupted Gon and Himeko's conversation. "I haven't learned _Nen_ yet, so I won't be of any use. In the meantime, I'll try and find another way to earn money and try to get hold of Kurapika's whereabouts."

"Okay, then us three will be finding more things to sell," Gon confirmed the plan once again. "Leorio will be in the hotel room looking for other ways to earn money."

"That's right, we'll meet again near this cafe. If not, then we'll contact each other via phone." Killua added, before he turned to Himeko. "If you get lost, stay put and don't move! Just call either Gon or me and wait for one of us to come and pick you up."

"Roger!" She saluted sarcastically at his bossy demands.

"Okay, if that's all I'll be heading back to the hotel room. If I get through to Kurapika, I will call you three." He informed them. "Also, take care of Kou you two. It's not really safe for a girl to be walking around alone in Yorkshin, especially since the underground auctions will be taking place soon. All kinds of weirdos will be roaming around this place."

"Don't worry, I'm a girl that can kick ass!" She reassured Leorio while pumping her fist, only to be dragged away by Killua.

"Yeah yeah, you can kick some ass later!" He dragged her along, before turning to Gon who was putting on his backpack, "Come on Gon, we'll go and have a look at the items we bid on."

Leorio smiled as he watched the three kids walk away, _"Those three probably haven't realised it themselves, but they've grown a lot since the Hunter exam,"_ he thought proudly. _"I just hope Kurapika is alright."_ He then walked back to their hotel room to do his end of the searching.

* * *

**A/n -** Let the Yorkshin City arc begin!


	22. Conditional Auction

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 21**

_Conditional Auction_

_..._

Gon, Killua and Himeko decided to split up to look for more items at the market, while Leorio headed back to the hotel to continue his search over the internet. Himeko looked through the market, using _Gyo_ to find anything that caught her eye. Gon and Killua had already bid on most of the items she found, but she also found that someone had put a higher bid on all of those items they bid on. "Someone seems to either have the same taste as us, or is intentionally trying to piss us off," she thought, staring at the tag with only two bids on them.

While she was deep in thoughts, the owner was starting to get impatient, "Excuse me miss, are you going to bid on that?" His deep voice caused her to eventually snap out of it, and she looked up to look at the elderly man's face. She had been staring at the name of the other bidder for too long, and there was nothing much she could do about it.

"I'm sorry, could I borrow a pen?" She asked, having only one choice left with these items. The owner passed her a blue ballpoint pen, before she remembered what Killua had instructed her and Gon to do. She never had to bid on something, and neither did Gon, so Killua was pretty much the two could turn to for advice. _"He told us to increase the bid by 2.5! 2,900 multiplied by 2.5 is 7,250 Jenny." _After calculating the new sum, she wrote the number underneath the mysterious bidder's sum, before adding her own initials. Just like this, she continued to check for new items that could be worth a lot, and while she was doing this, she went on to check up on the items the two boys had already bid on, making sure the mysterious bidder hadn't topped their bid. If he did, she simply increased the bid by 2.5, before adding the initials H.I next to it. As she continued doing this, she eventually managed to reach the end of the market place, and without even realising it, she got herself lost. After all, she spent too much attention on the items she could potentially bid on rather than where she was going.

She looked around the unknown area, hoping that she'd eventually recognise one or two landmarks. But seeing how everything just looked pretty much the same, Himeko could only think of one way out. _"Great, now I have to call Killua,"_ she sighed, knowing that he'd end up yelling at her for getting lost. Although she could contact Gon, she knew that although he could be a real headache, Killua was a lot more reliable in these kind of situations. She took out the Beetle phone the boys bought for her, realising that she still wasn't too fond of it. She dialled his number, and waited for him to pick up. Once he picked up, she greeted him in an awfully cheerful voice. "Oh, hey Killua, it's me."

"_Yes, I know!" _He replied, after hearing that obvious greeting,_ "what is it?"_

"I finished on my side of the market," she started off by giving him a status report, hoping it would lessen the lecture she was about to get.

"_Okay, great! Come back to the restaurant, Gon and I will meet you once we are done."_

"Yeah, about that…" she began dragging on her words.

Hearing her change in tone, Killua could guess what she was about to say next, "_You got lost, didn't you?"_

"Yes, sorry…."

"_Okay, tell me where you are. I'll come and pick you up."_

She looked around the area, wanting to spot some notable landmarks, "There is big fruit market in front of a Post Office."

"_Okay, don't move! I'll be there." _She ended the call and put her phone back, before getting another closer look at it. She couldn't get used to having a bug-shaped phone, no matter how hard she tried, it always ended up making her cringe in disgust. She headed towards the Post Office and stood right in front of the large building, waiting for Killua to arrive. There was a large crowd, probably due to the fact that the auctions were going to begin in a few days, and the street was very busy. Most of them were probably tourists, just like her, trying to get a taste of the busy city life before heading back home.

While she was minding her own business, she suddenly noticed a man wearing all black approach her. He looked like quite a shady character, and that was when she remembered Leorio's warning not to talk to strangers, especially since the streets would be filled with all kinds of shady people with the underground auctions around the corner. She knew that she could protect herself, and so did Leorio, but he didn't want her to be auctioned off to some random stranger at the underground auctions. He couldn't help but remember the human trafficker Himeko fought in Trick Tower, and how he began estimating how much she was worth.

"You look lost, young lady," he suddenly initiated a conversation with her, "Want me to take you back?"

"No, I'm alright," she politely turned his offer down, "I'm already waiting for someone, they'll get here anytime soon." She couldn't do much about him standing right next to her, and the most she could do was try to turn him down or ignore his questions. Leorio warned the children not to get into trouble, and to avoid any unwanted attention. The mafia, and other underground gangs were going to be there at this time, so accidentally getting involved with the wrong people could lead them into big trouble, so she decided to keep her mouth shut.

However, despite all her efforts to ignore the larger man, he just wouldn't leave her alone. "Are you here alone, or did you come on a family holiday with your parents?", "How old are you?", "What's your name?", "Where are you from?" His questions wouldn't stop, no matter how much she tried to ignore him, he just kept trying again several times.

"Excuse me, sir," hearing another voice, their attention turned towards a younger man who approached the two. "Could you please stop picking on my little sister?" The younger man was quite tall, his messy, black hair was long enough to be tied into a short ponytail. Just like the shady man, he was dressed in all black, with straight, black jeans and a black, V neck shirt underneath a black biker jacket. She noticed a couple of piercings on his ears, and his eyes were a dark red, standing out against his olive skin tone. Seeing him, the other man who was bothering Himeko just gave up and left. Himeko watched as he walked away, without uttering a word before she turned to the stranger.

"Thank you," She thanked him, but that was pretty much all she said. After all, he was a stranger just like the much bigger man who just left, and judging by his wanna be, punk attire, Himeko didn't want to trust this new stranger. He looked just like one of those cliche biker gang members, with ripped jeans that carried around a baseball bat to fight against other gangs. Keeping what Leorio told them in mind, he could possibly be someone from a biker gang, trying to act nice in order to get closer to her.

"No big deal," he smiled back at her, "but you shouldn't be walking around by yourself, even if you are a fighter." For some reason, he could tell that she was a fighter just by looking at her. That alone told Himeko that he wasn't just a regular wanna be punk; he could potentially be a _Nen_ user just like her, or he could just be really good at guessing these things.

"Do I know you?" She asked, with her guard still up around him. There was no point in him starting a conversation with her, she acknowledged the fact that he stepped in to help her get rid of the man, but she never exactly asked for his help either. Killua was going to come sooner or later, so he would have stopped bothering her knowing that she wasn't actually alone like he thought. There was no way someone would bother staying behind knowing that she was strong enough to protect herself.

"Nope, but now you do. I'm Ryosuke!" He grinned widely, "What's your name?"

"Before I answer, may I know why you helped me?" She wasn't really trying to be cooperative, since him giving up and leaving her was pretty much what she wanted. However, she was surprised to see that Ryosuke remained behind and actually kept answering all her questions. Despite his looks, he was surprisingly patient.

"Well, you remind me of a certain someone I know. A very close friend of mine to be precise," he answered honestly. "I guess I just acted out of instinct to protect that friend of mine."

"Kou, that's my name!" Though she was still reluctant to give out any of her personal details, she did decide to stick to her nickname. He was a stranger, but she could tell that his answers were honest. His answer was rather unusual, so she could tell that he wasn't actually lying.

"Kou, huh?" Ryosuke proceeded to take a moment to repeat her name a couple of times inside her head, "That's a pretty boyish name, I thought you'd have a more girly and princess-like name than that!" He commented quite bluntly, before going on to change the subject. "Well, that doesn't matter. I was starting to feel quite hungry and I didn't have anyone to eat with. You look like my friend, so let's eat together. I'll treat you!" Before Himeko could reject his offer, Ryosuke dragged her along to the nearest family restaurant and sat down at a table by a window, telling Himeko to sit down in front of him. He ordered food for both of them, before he started talking his adventures around the world. He had been travelling the world quite a lot with that friend of his, who apparently had some business to attend somewhere, so he couldn't make it to Yorkshin. Despite his looks, he was quite the talkative type, and although Himeko wasn't particularly interested in taking part in the conversation, she certainly did decide to listen to the stories about all the countries he had visited.

"Your food is here," The waitress brought two plates over, while Ryosuke was still busy talking. One was a kids meal, and the other was the house special, and assuming that Himeko ordered the kids meal, she placed the smaller plate in front of her and the other, much larger meal in front of Ryosuke. They thanked her, and as soon as she left their table, Ryosuke proceeded to swap their plates around.

"You see, they don't give toys with the kids meal unless a kid ordered it," he explained, leaving Himeko mentally face-palming at his immature behaviour. He claimed to be twenty-one years old, yet he was acting a lot more childish than her. Being twelve, even she grew out of the phase of wanting toys from fast food chains.

"So you were just using me to get the toy?" She asked, slightly offended by his surprisingly strange ulterior motive.

"Not at all!" He was quick to refute any accusations she made, "I also wanted some company while eating lunch." Ryosuke continued to talk a lot, while Himeko was just quietly listening to him. Apparently his friend was a lot like her, both appearance and personality wise. He came to attend the auctions by himself to see whether there are any nice items for sale this year, and also just to experience something new. Himeko did point out that most of the items for sale were quite expensive, but he seemed to be there more for the fun than to actually buy anything. Eventually, he came to realise that he had talked quite a lot about himself. He couldn't think of anything else he could tell her, so he thought that it was appropriate to ask her questions about herself. "So, are you here alone?"

"No, I'm here with friends," she replied to his question with a very vague answer.

"Really?" He asked in an almost exaggerated surprised tone, "Aren't your parents worried? I mean, you are twelve, aren't you?"

"No, they don't mind. I'm quite responsible, so they trust me to look after myself. Besides, I'm here with friends, so they aren't worried," she lied, but something about him did start to seem off to her now. _"How did he know I was twelve?"_ She went off into deep thoughts, _"It couldn't just have been a lucky guess again, there can't be two coincidences at once. I refuse to believe that!"_

"Speaking of friends, is he one?" He pointed outside the window, where Killua was glaring straight at her. She choked on her drink, seeing Killua stand on the other side of the window, and gave him an apologetic gesture. Killua then walked inside the restaurant, and Himeko just gulped seeing the speed he was walking at.

"Are you out of your mind?" He began to shout at her, "I was looking all over the place for you, I thought something might have happened." The fact that he actually seemed genuinely worried made her head hang low in guilt, and all she could do was apologise, trying to calm him down. She completely forgot about him in all the commotion, and she admitted that it was her fault.

Seeing her head hang so low, Ryosuke couldn't help but feel partly responsible for this. Although he was just an outsider, he couldn't just stand there and watch her get shouted at, so he decided to step in and help explain the situation. "Don't take it out on her," Ryosuke interjected. "I was the one who asked her to keep me company."

"Who is this?" Killua asked her, eyeing the young man in his early twenties. He first assumed that this might be someone she knew, but judging by her body language, he guessed that Ryosuke was a complete stranger. Why someone who didn't trust anyone besides herself was sitting with a stranger, he began wondering.

"Some man kept bothering me while I was waiting for you near the Post office, but Ryosuke somehow managed to chase him away," she explained the situation a little better, hoping Killua would eventually calm down and process whatever she was telling him. "I'm really sorry, I forgot all about you coming to get me in all that commotion."

Killua couldn't help but sigh. He couldn't take it out on her, she was just trying to pay him back for helping her, something she rarely did. Ryosuke on the other hand had no reason to apologise; he should be the one thanking him for stepping in before Himeko lost her temper and punched the strange man. He took a moment to digest everything and managed to cool his head, "Come on then, Gon must be waiting for us."

She got up from her seat, seeing Killua walk out of the restaurant. "Thank you once again," she showed her gratitude to Ryosuke once more.

"It's okay, I must thank you, after all I got the toy I wanted thanks to you accompanying me." He smiled at her, holding up the toy from the kids meal with satisfaction.

"Well then, take care Ryusuke," she said, before starting to take her leave. "Also, please greet that friend of your's from me. She's really lucky to have a friend like you who talks so highly of her." With that, Killua and Himeko left the restaurant, and Ryosuke watched them through the window, before calling over the waitress and asking her for the bill.

_"Maybe I should have told her that my name is Ryosuke, not Ryusuke."_ He thought, as her wrong pronunciation of his name started to irk him a little. While he was waiting for the bill, he received an unexpected phone call. He picked up, "What's up Hak-kun?"

"_How many times have I told you to call me by my given name,"_ the man on the other side groaned in a frustrated tone. "_Where are you anyway?"_

"Just had lunch," he answered his question, "I still have time left until the underground auction, so I decided to look around town."

"_I heard a rumour that the Spiders will be causing some ruckus at the auctions,"_ his comrade on the other line proceeded to warn him,_ "Don't get involved, I know for someone like you, it's tempting to get into a fight."_

"Those guys are here?" Ryosuke asked in surprise, "I've never seen them before, I might want to take a peek at them before I leave."

Hearing this, his friend warned him yet again, hoping it would get through his thick skull this time around, "_Don't get yourself involved with them, Ryosuke."_

"Is that all you wanted to say?"

"_Yes. I'll see you in a couple of weeks."_

Knowing that he was going to end the call then, Ryosuke wanted to mention something that was quite important in his opinion. "Before you put down the phone Hakuryuu, your sister told me to greet you on her behalf."

"_Sister?" _Hakuryuu's voice didn't sound any different from usual. Even after the mention of his sister, his voice was rather monotonous and cold.

"Don't worry, I didn't tell her who you really were. I thought it would be fun talking about you without mentioning your name. She actually thought you were a girl," Ryosuke found the encounter with Himeko quite amusing, he saw why the two were related. First of all, the pair shared the same trust issues, and Ryosuke who didn't have a sibling found this quite amazing. However, Hakuryuu didn't seem amused at all as the other side of the phone was quiet. "She's a really cute girl, and I can see the resemblance to you," he continued to describe his alike sister, "She also seems to have a really good boyfriend with her, so there is no need to worry about her."

"_Stop playing around Ryosuke. Just finish your business in Yorkshin and return." _With that, the phone call cut.

_"What a party pooper,"_ Ryosuke thought, being left with the constant beeping sound after his comrade ended the call. He spend a moment looking at the little toy and the table and shrugged. There wasn't much he could do after this, so he put the toy away in his pocket, paid for the meal and decided to take a leave as well.

Meanwhile, Killua led the way back to the meet-up place in silence. Himeko walked behind him, knowing that initiating a conversation with him might just make him a lot more irritated than he already was. However, there was something unsettling about this silence, as if it was just making Killua a lot angrier than he was. "You aren't still angry at me, are you?" She asked quietly, hoping not to get shouted at again.

"Of course I am!" Killua yelled back in response, just like she expected. Knowing that he was going to continue shouting any time soon, she started to regret opening her big mouth in the first place. "I got so worried when I couldn't find you, I thought something might have actually happened to you."

"I've gotten a lot stronger since the Hunter exam," she reassured him. "I was already pretty strong before than, but I worked really hard over the past few months, just like you guys!"

"Yes, but you are still as naive as you were back then. You definitely became stronger, and maybe your hair grew a little, but other than that you didn't change one bit. You still don't know how to tell people apart based on their true intentions, that Ryosuke guy looked quite shady himself but you still allowed yourself to be dragged away by him." He stopped walking and turned around in annoyance, giving her a punch on the head, "Now that I think of it, what the hell were you even thinking?!"

"Tsk," she clicked her tongue, rubbing her head to make the throbbing pain go away. He had every right to get annoyed at her though, which she admitted. If this was Gon following a stranger, Killua would have done the same thing to him without a doubt, which is why she chose not to say anything to him. In a way, this told her that Killua was starting to open up to her a lot more. Whatever they had against each other in the past, he finally started to look past it all, and maybe whatever happened right after the Hunter exam really did make him trust Himeko, Kurapika and Leorio more, and consider them as his friends too. Although she never had the intentions of becoming friends with the ex-assassin, she couldn't deny that he wasn't as bad as she first thought.

The pair kept walking down the streets, and some places started to look a lot more familiar to her on the way back. She told Killua about someone who placed a higher bid on the items he and Gon had bid on and surprisingly, Killua had also noticed that. They found it quite strange at first, but Killua explained that it could just be a troll trying to mess with them. He too decided to increase the bids to see what the mysterious bidder would do in response, and they were absolutely certain that Gon had the same experience.

When they reached the restaurant, Gon was already waiting for the late comers to arrive. He had told them that Leorio would be arriving any minute now, as he managed to come up with a better and more efficient way to earn money. Also, when asking Gon about the mysterious bidder who bid on the items they bid on, he recalled coming across the name too. He also decided to increase the bid by 2.5, or at least tried to increase the bid by the said amount with his math skills.

"In any case, let's come back and check after a couple of days. He might have given up by now," Killua suggested, still sticking to his theory that whoever this may be might just try to rile the three up to pass his own time. Not too long after, Leorio arrived at their meet-up spot and then led them somewhere else. He seemed quite confident with his idea, so the youngsters had high hopes that maybe Gon could earn enough money to buy Greed Island. Eventually, Leorio started leading them down an unwelcoming path, down a dark, dirty alley way. The further they walked, the more isolated and dangerous the place seemed to be. After arriving at what Leorio considered a good spot, he proceeded to explain his ingenious idea.

He proposed hosting a wrestling match, and of course, there was some bait to lure in the fish. He took out a little blue, jewellery box out of his blazer pocket, before presenting them with a three million Jenny diamond ring. How he got the ring of course he didn't mention, but once he was able to catch their attention with the ring, he continued to tell them his master plan. To enter the match, participants would have to pay a entrance fee. Their competitor would be the little Gon, and whoever wins against him would receive the prize.

"But wouldn't Gon win anyway? He is an enhancer after all." Killua asked, well aware of the fact that he already knew the answer. However, as this idea was coming from Leorio, he still decided to ask just to confirm it.

"Yes, and that's the point!" Leorio grinned proudly. Whatever he was doing in the hotel room, he seemed like he was a lot more productive than the other three.

"So, we are basically going to scam a bunch of people," Himeko tried to simplify their plot for everyone to understand.

"You can call it scamming if you like," he shrugged indifferently. At the end of the day, they would end up with the money Gon needed. "It's up to you guys!" Gon, Killua and Himeko thought about it for a while, and although it sounded ridiculous at first, it was definitely going to be much more effective than whatever they had planned to do. They couldn't go around the open auction and bid on things forever; it was going to become a waste of time, and eventually they would run out of artefacts that were actually real.

Once they all agreed on Leorio's idea, they then began setting up the event with Leorio's instructions. Somehow, the ruckus they were causing was starting to attract a crowd, just like he planned to, and he continued to invite even more people to enter the conditional auction. As soon as he had gathered a decent crowd, he began to explain the rules. "Step forward gentlemen, if you win against our little champ here, you'll be the lucky winner of this diamond worth three million Jenny," Leorio announced, loud enough for everyone in the audience to hear. He got quite a lot of attention after he mentioned how much the diamond was actually worth and then gestured for Himeko to step forward with the box containing the diamond and show it to the crowd. Even more men stepped forth, trying to get a closer look at the diamond, almost too close for their own comfort.

"Woah, hold it!" Killua stepped forward, trying to get the crowd to step back. "We still have the receipt for the diamond if you don't believe us, but in order to get the diamond, you'll have to win."

"Please line up if you want to take part in the event. There will be a small fee to enter, but it's all for the chance to win a three million worth diamond," Leorio continued with his act, and it was working quite well. Hearing this, quite a lot of men started to form a line, confident in winning against the little, innocent looking Gon. The man who was up first considered himself quite lucky, and confidently sat down in front of Gon. Killua took the entrance fee and Leorio announced the start of the match. At first, Gon was struggling against the competitor; or he was pretending to struggle against him in better terms. It ended up being an easy win for Gon, which sparked the curiosity of more and more people. The event ended up becoming quite popular, and they kept going on for hours with Gon being undefeated of course.

Later in the evening, a young woman stepped forward to take the challenge, being amazed by the diamond ring as a prize. Her height was quite average, and she was wearing a black turtleneck, blue, bootcut jeans and thick, black framed glasses that covered almost half of her face. Her hair was black, and just above her shoulders, and noticing how she was so confident in herself, the audience started to wonder how far this young woman was going to get against the undefeated champ. Killua once again collected money from her, and Leorio announced for the match to begin as soon as both parties were ready.

Their match started, and Gon kept up his struggling act as always, however, this time it was different. "Hey you two, don't you think Gon is too much into the act this time?" Leorio whispered over to Killua and Himeko, noticing how much he was actually struggling. Gon was quite a bad actor to be perfectly honest, so he didn't expect such a believable performance from him all of the sudden.

"No, I think Gon is actually struggling for real." Killua pointed out, "Don't you notice it?"

Himeko nodded in response, knowing exactly what he was talking about. "There is something strange about that woman, I can sense it!" She added to Killua's initial comment, "Gon could potentially lose this one!" The fact that these two were actually into this match sparked Leorio's curiosity. While Gon was going up against all the challengers, Himeko and Killua couldn't help but feel bored the whole day, knowing too well that their friend was going to win all the matches. Seeing how focused they were, Leorio couldn't help but turn his full concentration to the intense match happening in front of him. Their match dragged out for quite a while, at one point, the girl seemed to have the upper hand, but then Gon would overtake. It turned out to be more of a tug-o-war than an arm wrestling match, but eventually, the girl gave in and Gon managed to win. Disappointed by the loss, the girl quietly left, eyeing the diamond ring she wanted so badly on the way back. Gon watched her leave, wondering who she could be.

"Are you okay, Gon?" Himeko suddenly snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Yeah, but that girl made me use my full strength," he confessed, looking around for the strong girl in the large crowd, but she seemed to have disappeared. "She was really strong."

"Never mind, let's just stop and head back for today, there aren't many people willing to take on the challenge anymore," Leorio suggested, seeing how taken back they still were by the challenge Gon had to face. If he were to come across more competitors like the mysterious girl with the specs, Gon would need his rest. The three cleared up the space and counted their profit, giving Gon a moment to rest after a long day. They earned a lot, but it was still no where near their target sum, so they had to come up with something else. For now, they decided to head back to their hotel room. It was quite late, and they still had a few days left until the auction.

On the way back to the Hotel, Killua and Gon led the way while Leorio and Himeko followed. "Did you manage to get hold of Kurapika?" She asked, hoping that he was able to contact Kurapika while in the hotel. Unfortunately, he didn't. He had been trying for so long, but there was no luck.

"Worried?" He asked, to which she could only nod quietly. "Don't worry, he's smart enough to keep himself out of trouble."

"That's not it, I just feel like he is going to do something reckless." Leorio couldn't argue with her point, as it was valid. He swore to fight the Phantom Troupe before they split up to train, and that was the last time they saw him in person, or even heard from him. What had become of him while he was alone, they didn't know.

"Let's just try getting in contact with him. We'll just annoy him by calling him over and over again, so at one point he'll pick up just to tell us how annoying we are," he tried to cheer her up, and somehow it did lighten the mood a little, but she was still a little worried about Kurapika. He was just a step away from the Phantom Troupe, and she knew that he would seize this opportunity to fight them alone. Knowing this all too well, she could just hope for the best.

Once they were at the Hotel, the trio decided to teach Leorio how to use _Nen_. He was able to master _Ten_, but couldn't get the hang of the rest. "You three actually learned all this?" He questioned, exhausted by his the little training he had done so far.

"Yep!" Killua nodded, while pointing out a mistake he was making.

"We actually had to learn _Nen_ to fight on the 200th floor," Gon added, recalling how Hisoka wouldn't let them past the elevator to sign up without the knowledge of _Ten_.

"Meh, it was actually quite easy. We mastered pretty much everything in a day," Killua shrugged as if the training required little to no effort, "Not like we needed to dwell on it for months to actually master it."

"Well, I actually achieved it through meditation unlike Gon and Killua, which is also how you are supposed to do it in the first place!" Himeko shot back, knowing that Killua's previous comment was supposed to be an indirect insult. "It was annoying since it took long, but I'm quite good at it now, and I did it the authentic way."

"Must suck to do it the same way every other ordinary person would do it," Killua started adding more fuel to the fire, purposely trying to start an argument. "Gon and I are one in a million talents!"

"Killua..." Gon could only stand beside the two, knowing that this was just going to lead to another argument between the two. "Let's just continue training Leorio for today!"

"No, I give up for today," he interrupted their little argument, before putting his navy coat back on. "I have some business to attend outside."

"Business?" Gon asked curiously, having a vague idea of what this business was. "Are you going to look for Kurapika?"

At the mention of Kurapika's name, Himeko was the first one to step forward. "If you are looking for Kurapika, I'll come too."

"I never said I'll be going to meet him," Leorio went on to deny any crazy ideas the two started to get, before turning down anyone who wanted join him on his late night walk. "It's too dangerous outside for you to come with all these criminals lurking around. For adults like me, this city is still awake. You brats should be in your pj's right now!"

Seeing him walk towards the door, Killua did request one last thing, knowing that Leorio was obviously lying about where he was going. "If you do bump into Kurapika by chance, do tell him to stop by sometime soon."

"You know, for a kid your size you shouldn't be ordering me around," Leorio laughed, patting Killua's head. "If you asked politely, then maybe I'll do it."

"I don't want to hear that from someone who doesn't even know the difference between _Ten_ and _Ren_!" Killua shot back, angrily.

"Anyways, I'll be going out to explore the city and do adult stuff like going to bars and stuff," he continued to convince him that he wasn't going to look for Kurapika, hoping that they'd eventually settle down. Hearing the mention of bars and clubs, Killua and Himeko weren't exactly surprised and would actually believe it as it was coming from Leorio. "I want you all asleep by the time I come back." Following this, Himeko was the first one to collapse onto her bed. She was exhausted after a long day and due to the drug B-2405, her metabolism increase greatly, which caused her to use up a lot more energy than normal people. As well as having to take in enough food, she also had to get a good night's sleep to function properly. "You two should learn from Kou!" Leorio said, pointing at her who was probably already asleep. They all took a moment to stare at her unconscious body, before Leorio left. It was now only Gon, Killua, and Himeko who was sound asleep.

"Do you think he'll find Kurapika?" Gon asked Killua, still convinced that Leorio was going out to search for Kurapika and not mess around in bars and clubs.

"The city is quite big, so I guess chances are slim." Killua replied, thinking about things in a more logical manner.

"Yeah, but we'll run into him sooner or later, right?"

"Probably."

"What do you think, Kou?" Gon asked Himeko, hoping she'd agree with him as well, however, there was no response from her side.

"Leave her, she is probably asleep by now. Either way, now that the old man's gone, how about we flick through the TV channels? Who knows, we might find a good R rated movie on one of the channels." He gave Gon a mischievous grin, leaving Gon dumbfounded. "Things like this make staying in a hotel a lot more fun. Let's make the most of it!"

Gon was somewhat flustered by his comment, trying to find a way to stop him from doing anything stupid. "What if Kou wakes up?" Although Killua wasn't scared of her, Gon knew that he would at least try to act like a decent human being, knowing that she was still in the same room as them. But Killua didn't seem the slightest bit affected by his comment.

"Don't worry, she's fast asleep." He reassured confidently, looking back at her lifeless body, "It will take a good couple of hours for her to wake up again!"

"I'm still awake, you bastard!" Himeko's voice startled Killua and Gon all of the sudden, and they both turned to each other, hoping the other would go and check up on her. As he was the nearest to her, Killua slowly walked up to confirm whether she was still awake, pretending to be asleep or actually asleep.

After confirming her state, Killua briefly glanced at Gon giving him a reassuring nod, before he sighed in relief, _"She's just sleep talking." _

While Leorio was outside, he was putting up posters trying to advertise their conditional auction around the city, hoping to make a bigger catch the next day. At the same time, knowing that Kurapika would be somewhere in the city, he was hoping that they would coincidentally run into each other. An hour past, and Gon and Killua were still wide awake. Gon was deep in thoughts, wondering where Kurapika might be and he called Killua, wanting to ask him about something. Killua removed his headphones, "Something wrong? You should seriously join me, this stuff is pretty intense!" He offered, hoping his friend would eventually take the offer. But before Gon could ask anything, he heard the door opening, and Leorio was finally back.

"Ah, Leorio," Gon got out of his bed to greet him, "You're back!"

"Didn't I tell you kids to sleep?" He asked, seeing how Gon was still wide awake, "Look at Kou and Killua, they are asleep already."

Gon's head immediately turned to Killua's bed. The TV was switched off, the headphones were put away and he was sound asleep. "But-"

"No but's Gon, go to sleep. We have a long day ahead of us!" Soon, they all fell asleep, not knowing about all the things that were going on that night at the underground auction. The Phantom Troupe entered the stage to do the opening act, and soon Kurapika would join them. The four were sleeping peacefully, but for Kurapika it was going to be one hell of a night.


	23. Crawling Spiders

**Quick Warning -** Most of the first part of this chapter will be a summary of what happened during the first night. I think I managed to fit a couple of episodes worth of stuff into this. I wrote some bits more vaguely than others and I'm sorry if this wasn't the kind of chapter you were expecting, but I didn't want to leave it out either although it was a drag to write a big blob of summary.

I indicated the end of the 'summary', so you can skip it as I did write about the scene at the hotel the next morning :)

* * *

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 22**

_Crawling Spiders_

_..._

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen," a shorter man welcomed the large crowd as he entered the stage at the underground auction. His eyes scanned the audience and heavily guarded doors in the dim auction hall, and seeing the excitement on people's faces made his expression grow much darker. He calmly put his hands in his trouser pockets, knowing that the faiths of these people was going to change very soon. Then, he announced the change in schedule, "Let us all begin without formal greetings….. you all die _now_."

With that, the long awaited night finally began. Not knowing what the host meant, the crowd became very confused. Some became quite vary at his odd behaviour, while others just laughed it off as the host's dark humour. This was the underground auctions after all, and though not everyone enjoyed dark humour, the crowd thought of it as appropriate for the occasion. However, the relief quickly turned into worry, as a much taller, and bulkier man appeared behind the smaller one. There was something about the duo that made the crowd panic; though the shorter one looked potentially harmless, they were convinced that he committed a fair share of sins just based on the amused look in his slanted eyes. The taller man, though he was mostly expressionless, his large, built body could put all of the bodyguards at the event to shame. They watched in horror as the bigger man's fingertips detached, and he used them as shotguns to kill everyone in the audience, while the smaller man in front of him blocked his ears due to the loud, machine gun noise.

One of the Nostrade bodyguards tried to block his attack, but was unable to, making him fall victim to the bulkier man's _Nen_ bullets. Two of his colleagues tried to escaped, only to meet the same, petite woman who arm wrestled Gon earlier that day. She used her own _Nen_ ability to attack the two bodyguards, using a conjured vacuum cleaner she called Blinky. After vacuuming the two dead corpses up, she left the scene, entering the main auction hall where she met up with her colleagues, who were still standing on stage, looking at all the lifeless corpses in front of them.

"Man, that went way too fast," the hulkier man complained, noticing that this was no challenge at all. None of the bodyguards were strong enough to even come close to him, which caused him to easily end everyones' lives with no trouble at all.

"Don't complain," the shorter man interrupted, looking slightly disappointed himself, "I didn't even get to do anything, I just watched."

The hulk sighed, having expected a bigger challenge before turning to his female colleague wearing the specs, "The rest is all yours, Shizuku!"

Shizuku nodded in response, pulling her vacuum cleaner along, "Let's go, Blinky," she turned her vacuum cleaner on again, "Suck up all the blood, corpses and body parts lying around. Don't forget the chairs!" She got to work, and vacuumed the hall casually, as if she was vacuuming an ordinary bedroom. The two men watched their colleague clean up the mess they made, getting rid of all the evidence of them being involved in this massacre.

"It's always entertaining to watch this part," the shorter man commented, as they looked around the hall that was nearly spotless. However, he couldn't help but notice one of the bodies moving, and seeing this, he turned to his taller comrade. "Someone's not dead yet, Franklin," he informed him, and the much taller Franklin just blinked at the sight of the undead man slowly stumbling back on his feet, "You missed one, what to do now?"

"Just do what you want to do with him, Feitan!" Franklin sighed just looking at the overly excited face of his much smaller comrade, as he had finally found and opportunity to use violence. With that in mind, he stepped back allowing Feitan to finish the job off, but before he could do so the middle-aged man who was on the verge of death had something on his mind that he wanted the group of murderers to know.

"You will all die!" He began to curse them with his last few breaths, before going on to warn them about the real power of the mafia. "The community won't let this slide! They will destroy you, your family and all your loved ones. They will torture you, and cut you into pieces."

Feitan wasted not another second, finally putting an end to the last survivor of the underground auction. He found his final words to be especially amusing, knowing that human emotions was something foreign to him. Despite all that, he found it foolish for humans to express family bonds, because at the end of the day they were people too, and since they were just ordinary people just like anyone else, they could easily betray you. "Family? Love?" He asked in a mocking tone. "What's that?"

Shizuku continued her cleaning job, using Blinky to suck the dead man up, leaving only a single shoe behind. "Blinky, you forgot the shoe!" She pointed out after spotting the piece of evidence her trusty hoover forgot to suck up, to which Blinky finished its job at the auction hall by sucking in the shoe, and ended it all with a loud, and satisfied burp. With that, the three Phantom Troupe members looked around the auction hall, seeing whether they had left anything out. For an auction lead by the oh-so-great mafia, this job was a lot easier than they had initially expected. In the end, the underground auction was over, and no one was left to do any bidding.

Meanwhile, Kurapika who also became a member of the Nostrade bodyguards, was also keeping watch of the building with a fellow bodyguard, Melody. They watched masses of armed men enter the building from afar, before deciding to contact their leader. The Nostrade family was part of the mafia community who started out quite small, but became well known in just a short period of time. The head was Light Nostrade, and he had just one daughter, Neon Nostrade, who had the ability to predict the future with hundred percent accuracy. Thanks to his daughter's successful ability, he had earned himself quite a high position amongst the mafia, and his priority was to protect his precious daughter who was the reason behind his big success. This was the reason why he hired only the strongest bodyguards, one of which was Kurapika. Joining the mafia community was something he was after to gain more information about his clan's eyes, and to get access into the underground auction.

While walking past the building in all this chaos was Ryosuke, who watched the masses of mafia members storm in. He wasn't exactly part of the mafia, but that didn't stop him from wanting to enter the underground auction place by all means. _"Looks like I missed one hell of a party,"_ he commented, watching all these buff bodyguards storm into the building. It was tempting for him to just sneak inside and get a good look at what the infamous Phantom Troupe members really looked like, and though he was itching for some excitement, because of the fact that Hakuryuu told him to keep a low profile and avoid messing with more people, he decided to listen to his intelligent partner in crime at least once. After letting out a loud, disappointed sigh, he just kept walking trying to avoid getting involved, _"I guess there's always a next year!"_

The leader of the Nostrade bodyguards instructed Kurapika and Melody to head inside the building, to find out what exactly happened. The pair of bodyguards went inside, and moved through the large mass of bodyguards and mafia leaders inside the building. With everyone in the auction hall having mysteriously vanished, the mafia was trying to dig up any evidence that could possibly point them towards a suspect. However, seeing the spotless hall with even the chairs missing, Kurapika decided to call their leader once again to give him a status update. "There is an uproar inside, everyone in the hall disappeared," he informed their leader, Dalzollene, "Everything is out of control here."

_"What?"_ Dalzollene was surprised to hear that hundreds of grown adults would vanish without a trace,_ "What about the merchandise?"_

"I'm not sure, Melody has gone to check the safe underground." With a large crowd in the building, both Kurapika and Melody decided to split up; one checking on what happened to all the participants while the other went to check up on the safe downstairs. However, Melody wasn't the only one who was sent to check up on the merchandise. As the uproar was happening upstairs, there were dozens of men swarming around the safe, hoping that at least the merchandise was still safe.

"Damn it, we came too late," one of the men cursed after opening the empty safe, "It's all gone!"

"What? Who could have done all this?" Another questioned, suspiciously looking around to maybe find the perpetrator still lurking around. But knowing that this wasn't just a job a couple dozen men could do, he gave an order to his men to spread the news, "Inform all the gangs, the safe has been robbed!"

Melody was listening in on everything that was being said, and after she had heard just enough, she decided to inform their Dalzollene over the phone. Hearing the news, Dalzollene couldn't help but feel troubled thinking about what might happen to his position. Kurapika informed him earlier that three of their new bodyguards were probably caught up in the mess, and the chances of them still being alive was straight up zero. With no other plan left in mind, he had to call for a meeting, telling Melody to gather Kurapika and arrive at a designated spot. Before leaving the hotel room, he briefly looked at his boss, Neon Nostrade who despite her innocent appearance had a strange, and sick hobby of collecting various body parts. He informed the maids that he would have to step out for a while, and told them to watch over Neon. Also, knowing that their boss was notorious for acting spoilt rotten, he told the maids to keep the fact that the items were stolen a secret from her in case she starts_ throwing a tantrum at him._

Back at the auction building, the mafia community had managed to seal off and surround the whole area, spreading the news like a wild fire to other community members. While this was happening, the culprits escaped via a hot air balloon, informing their leader of their plan that had failed.

On the phone with their leader Chrollo who was waiting for their arrival at their hideout, was the tall, tan and muscular Uvogin. "The safe was empty," he informed him of their misfortune, after all they went through to cause an uproar at the auction house.

"There was no merchandise left?_"_ Chrollo asked in surprise. However, there was a part of him that didn't find this so hard to believe. The treasures sold at this auction were rare collectors items, and there were people in this world who would go through all extremes to protect them.

"Apparently everything had been moved from the safe a couple of hours beforehand, as if they expected us to come and raid the place," Uvogin continued to fill their leader in, before looking at every single of his comrade standing beside him, "Isn't the timing a little too perfect, it's as if we have a black sheep amongst us." When Uvogin said that, all the members on the hot air balloon looked around with suspicion. Although they considered Uvogin not to be the brightest out of the group, he did make a valid point. The mafia had everything too well executed, as if it was planned days in advance.

Uvogin's theory did make sense to a certain degree, but Chrollo was quick to refute his statement, "There is no traitor among us," he stated, confident with his statement, "Judas sold Jesus out for a couple of pieces of silver, but what do you think any of us would gain from the mafia?_"_ He questioned them, and everyone on the hot air ballon was able to hear their leader's flawless reasoning, _"_What do you think the traitor would want? Fame? Money? Glory? If any of us would require one of those things, do you think they would be part of the Phantom Troupe?"

The trust Chrollo had in his troupe members was amazing, but none of the members were that astonished by it either. The bandit troupe consisted of just a few members, and despite being grade A criminals, in order to perform successful raids they had to be able to work together and have trust in each other's abilities. Although there was one member possibly everyone in the group hated, the rest was able to get along pretty well despite the occasional difference in opinion they had. Hearing these trusting words from their leader, Uvogin couldn't help but agree with his logical point."You have a point."

Although his members were innocent, there were still a few things that didn't add up according to Chrollo. "If someone had informed them about tonight's raid, their security would have been tighter, but that was not the case," he concluded, "People were completely unaware and unarmed, so I'm assuming that whoever informed them wasn't considered a reliable source of information. But one of the community leaders must have believed it and taken the merchandise to a safer place."

"Whatever," Uvogin shrugged, when things were getting too complex to think about. Whoever decided to rat them out would get in their way sooner or later, so it wasn't going to make much difference to them anyways. The main reason Uvogin called Chrollo in the first place was to get orders on what to do next. "What do you want us to do next?"

"Did the auctioneer tell you where the merchandise is?"

"He said he didn't know, and swore on his life, so Feitan killed him," Uvogin answered, glancing at the guilty, shorter man in front of him.

"It was his unlucky day," Feitan muttered quietly. Uvogin continued to explain that there were the _Ten Dons_ who ruled over the entire mafia community, and they had their own group of elite combat squad, called the _Shadow Beasts_. The _Ten Dons_ live all around the world, but they usually met up for the auctions every single year.

"So, since none of the _Shadow_ _Beasts_ were guarding the building, the mafia was unaware of our entrance tonight." Chrollo concluded, "Do you know how the merchandise was moved at least?"

"The auctioneer said that one of the_ Shadow Beasts_ entered the safe before the auction. He walked in empty handed and walked out empty handed, but when he was gone, the safe was empty. They call that man with the sunglasses by the codename, Owl."

_"Interesting, he must have a similar Nen ability to Shizuku,"_ Chrollo thought after hearing the information provided to him by Uvogin, "Well, after seeing the hall, the mafia must have realised that they aren't just messing around with ordinary thieves. After all, we are _Nen_ users too."

Hearing his boss' words, Uvogin immediately understood what he was wanting them to do. Being someone who simply enjoyed getting into fights, enjoying the thrill of inflicting pain onto others, he couldn't help but grow excited at the idea of causing more chaos than they already have. "Does that mean we can go all out tonight?" He asked with an excited, but still very sinister look on his face.

"Go on, put on a show for all your pursuers," Chrollo ordered from their stake out, "Show them the power of the Phantom Troupe." With that, Uvogin cut the call with an excited chuckle, thinking of all the possible things he could do that very night. A while later, the mafia had managed to spot the hot air balloon floating away from the city, and decided to shoot it down. After their crash landing, Uvogin volunteered to step in and fight against the armed men in front of him. They simultaneously pointed their guns at him, before one of them stopped them and approached Uvogin with a pistol.

"Did you kidnap the people at the auction?" The man asked, pointing his pistol at the much taller and muscular man in front of him.

"Not exactly," Uvogin grinned as his statement was only half true, "We did kill them all though."

"You bastard, who is your boss?" Uvogin continued giving the man and overly excited grin. With one strike, the man's neck was broken, and Uvogin continued to kill all the other members of the mafia community who were behind him, while the rest of the Phantom Troupe members were watching him go all out. He was enjoying himself quite a lot, so the others decided not to get involved in the fight.

Worm, Porcupine, Rabid Dog and Leech; four of the _Shadow Beasts_ were the next ones who approached Uvogin to fight. Worm was the first one to attack but he received an even harder punch back, and Uvogin's next attack injured Worm greatly. Porcupine was the next to attack, attaching himself to Uvogin but he was unable to free himself from his grip. Rabid Dog used this opportunity to bite off pieces of Uvogin's skin and inject poison into his open wounds, making him collapse. Leech then filled his body with leeches, so they could slowly attack him from the inside. Furiously, Uvogin bit off Leech's head and spat a piece of his skull into Rabid Dog's head, killing him on the spot. He then let out a loud scream, making the remaining member, Porcupine collapsed onto the floor.

After his opponents were all dead, Uvogin was unable to move due to the poisoning. He requested Shizuku to remove both the leeches and poison with her vacuum cleaner, but unfortunately she told him that Blinky could only suck up non living things, meaning it cannot suck the leeches out of his body. As they were thinking of another way to remove the leeches, Shalnark stepped down from the cliff, where they were watching the fight from, and took a closer look at one of the leeches.

"Do you know what they are?" Uvogin asked, seeing how closely Shalnark was analysing the potentially harmful insects.

"Yeah, these are spotted leeches!" Shalnark answered, while he was still analysing them. "They get into your bladder where they lay eggs before they die. It's going to hurt when you try to urinate after they hatch, and you can potentially die from the pain." He then proceeded to crush the leech he was looking at, suggesting a method to excrete out all the eggs before they could hatch. "But, they need specific conditions to hatch. Have as many cans of beer tonight, and try to go to the toilet frequently to wash them out of your body."

"That's all I have to do?" He asked, wondering whether his fellow Phantom Troupe member was just joking around, as having to chug down a few pints of beer was more of a treat to him than a cleanse. He let out a sigh of relief, "Don't scare me!" Then he turned to the other members, "Oi, someone go and buy me some beer from town." The members briefly looked at each other, before Franklin volunteered to go. "Shizuku, at least get the poison out of me then!"

Kurapika watched the fight from a distance, waiting for a chance to move in. With the _Shadow Beasts_ down, he wanted to use the opportunity to get moving, but Dalzollene tried to stop him. "What do you think you're doing?" He asked questioned, hoping Kurapika was well aware of how strong their opponent. Just one member was able to singlehandedly get rid of four of the strongest fighters the mafia had to offer, and they had to keep in mind that he still had back up. However, Kurapika still tried to resist, not wanting to listen to logic. He finally found the bastards that murdered his whole entire clan, and four years of waiting was already more than he could handle. The culprits were right in front of his eyes, so he had this sudden urge to go out there and fight them, although his mind told him otherwise.

Just that moment, Melody tried to calm everyone down by playing a tune on her flute. The soft, mellow tone of her flute was able to give everyone a few moments to breathe, and think about the situation more rationally. Although Kurapika looked a lot calmer now, he still insisted on going after Uvogin. After all, he was in a weak state with the leeches in his body, so they had to use this to their advantage. Using his _Chain Jail,_ he pulled the injured member from the distance towards them, and before any of his comrades could react, he took off in a car along with the other Nostrade bodyguards.

Being in a car surrounded by strangers definitely surprised him at first, but what took him back the most was Kurapika's ability to hold him captive. He scanned the silent car, turning his attention to his captor who was behind the wheel, "Yo driver, don't you think this is a good opportunity to get rid of me?"

Despite Uvogin's attempts to rile Kurapika up, he just kept his eyes on the road trying to focus, "Keep quiet!" His tone was calm and composed, despite the burning anger he could feel on the inside.

"What are you waiting for?" Uvogin continued, wanting Kurapika to snap, "It's your golden chance, you'll regret it later!"

"I told you to keep quiet!" Kurapika angrily tightened the grip of the chains. Although Uvogin was physically the strongest in the Phantom Troupe, even he found himself struggling against his opponent's strong grip.

"Kurapika, the road," Melody reminded him, hearing his heart beat rise gradually. She knew that he was slowly getting agitated, losing concentration on what was right in front of him. "Look at the road!" The anger he bared against the Phantom Troupe blinded him completely, and he was contemplating on whether he should just kill him right then and there, or whether he should wait and kill him after getting information out of him. He had to remember that Uvogin was a valuable hostage, being both a fountain of information about the Phantom Troupe, as well as being a bait to attract more Spiders. In the end, he decided to relax, and focus on the road ahead of him. Seeing this, Melody was finally able to calm down.

What they didn't notice was the Phantom Troupe members trailing them, trying to get Uvogin back. Machi planted one of her _Nen_ needles into Uvogin when he was being dragged away, and they were using the thread as a lead to follow the car. While they were after their team mate, Owl who is one of the _Shadow Beasts_ appeared in front of their car, and tried to capture them with his ability and apart from Nobunaga, everyone else managed to escape. Later, the remaining _Shadow Beasts_ appeared and were killed by the Spiders after greatly underestimating them. Owl was taken captive by the members of the troupe after remembering that he was the _Shadow Beast_ who moved the merchandise from the underground safe. Owl was taken away to be interrogated, and after the torture he received, he handed them the merchandise.

Meanwhile, the Nostrade bodyguards had taken hostage Uvogin to interrogate. He was tied up in an unknown location, and unable to move, mainly due to the poisoning. "You know, I might decide not to kill you if you let me go," Uvogin proposed, considering that it was quite a fair and generous offer he was making. "Doesn't that sound like a good deal?"

"What happened to everyone at the auction?" Kurapika asked, ignoring his proposal. Not having any time to waste with small talk, he wanted to get straight to the point. He certainly didn't want to have a nice chat with someone who killed his loved ones four years ago either, so he wanted to quickly get the interrogation over and done with.

Uvogin in the other hand didn't feel threatened by him at all. To him, Kurapika seemed more like a young pup, trying to growl at a much larger and intimidating dog. "They were killed," he shrugged, as if it was no big deal. "I wasn't there, so I don't know the details on how they were killed, so don't ask."

His response angered Kurapika, and it made him punch the captive in the face with all his force. His colleagues Ivlenkov, Shachmono and Baise were amongst that crowd of people who the troupe cruelly murdered, and for Uvogin to say it so casually as if it were no big deal irritated him a lot. Being in the presence of a troupe member already irked him, so there was a point where he couldn't hold back anymore. Melody ended up trying to calm him down and took him outside the interrogation room to cool his head. Uvogin's words lingered in his head, but not wanting to worry his colleague, he quickly cooled his head and gave her a smile, reassuring that he was going to be fine. But judging by his still agitated heart beat, she wasn't too sure about that anymore.

_Bing. _Just then, Kurapika took out his phone when he heard his message tone. There was a message for him from an unknown number.

* * *

**_From:_**_ Unknown_

Let's meet at the place we agreed on! \\(*⌒∇⌒*)/

* * *

Kurapika stared hard at his phone, before he decided to move out. Judging by the timing, and the immature emoji used in the message, he knew exactly who sent him and message, and he knew exactly where to go. After telling Melody to inform their boss, he headed to an abandoned amusement near the outskirts of the city.

While Kurapika left, the Phantom Troupe made it their priority to get Uvogin back and disguised as the mafia, they entered the place. Dalzollene, greeted them thinking they were part of the mafia who came to pick up Uvogin, but with one strike, he fell dead to the ground.

"It took you guys some time to come!" Uvogin complained a little, before he was freed from the chains tying him down to the table.

Phinks, who led the operation to get their fellow member removed his disguise, "Who's fault do you think that is?"

"Just hurry up already, we've wasted enough time as it is!" Machi pointed out, as she also removed the hat and sunglasses she used as a disguise.

With the chains finally removed, removing the poison that was slowing his body down was the only thing left to do, "Shizuku, do your thing!"

"Right!" Shizuku nodded, before she used her vacuum cleaner to suck all the poison out of Uvogin's body. He broke out of his position, starting to tear apart everything in his way, wanting to get back at the so called 'chain bastard'. Hearing his load roar, Kurapika's fellow bodyguards escaped from the building, knowing that if they stayed there any longer, it would become too dangerous for them.

"Don't you think you did enough damage?" Machi complained seeing his fellow let loose. "Let's get going, we were supposed to head back long ago."

"I won't come," he insisted stubbornly, "Not until I kill that chain bastard with my bare hands. Tell the boss I'll be late!" Hearing his firm answer, Machi, Phinks and Shizuku looked at each other before they all shrugged.

As Kurapika entered the amusement park, the sender was waiting already on the merry-go-round ride. It was Hisoka, who was patiently shuffling his deck of cards, "You came quite quickly," he pointed out, as he saw Kurapika approach him. Upon seeing the awfully familiar figure, Kurapika immediately decided to put his guard up, which Hisoka noticed. He was quite amused after seeing how tense Kurapika looked, but decided to let him know that he had different intentions of meeting him that night. "Don't worry, I'm not interested in fighting you just yet."

"I'm not here for small talk," Kurapika was quick to get to the point, having little time to actually talk to Hisoka. With Uvogin still with the other Nostrade bodyguards, Kurapika didn't have much time to waste with Hisoka. He wanted to go back and force more information out of the captured Phantom Troupe member, hoping it would eventually lure the others to them. "Tell me more about them!"

"Is that so? But I personally like small talk," Hisoka gave him a disappointed pout, to which Kurapika remained emotionless. He then wasted no time to tell Kurapika what he was really after. "There are thirteen members in the group, each have a number allocated to them along with a spider tattoo. Members can change if an applicant is able to defeat one of the standing members, or if the boss chooses someone to fill in an empty spot."

Kurapika interrupted him, informing him that these were just the basics everyone could find through the internet, "That much I know already."

Seeing how annoyed the teen was getting, Hisoka decided to skip the basics and get straight to the point. "Two or maybe three years ago, I defeated number four, and hence became the new number four."

"For what purpose?"

"To fight their boss."

"Why do you want to fight him?"

"Because he is strong..."

Hearing this, Kurapika was a little dumbfounded by his simple reason to go through all the trouble to join the group. However, as this was coming fro Hisoka, he wasn't very surprised by it at all. "You wanted to test your strength?"

"You can put it that way," Hisoka answered, before starting to imagine how strong Chrollo really was, "Just thinking about it gets me excited, but I've never gotten a chance to fight him. He is always on guard, and has at least two members with him. When the job is done, he vanishes without a trace," Hisoka then also decided to cut the small talk and tell Kurapika why he really wanted to meet up. "Let me get straight to the point, don't you find it a bit lonely to fight the Spiders on your own?"

Hisoka's sudden change in tone made Kurapika raise his brow in suspicion. Hisoka wanted something, and he could guess what it was. "What do you mean?"

"The members are strong, and I know the abilities of seven," he then continued with an offer he would find hard to turn down. "Interested in joining me?" Hisoka's narrowed his eyes, telling Kurapika that he was serious about his little plan. Defeating number four of the Phantom Troupe, getting Chrollo's approval to join the group and patiently taking part in all their ordeals; it sounded too much to go through just for a one on one battle with their leader. However, just to test his own strength and to satisfy his own craving for stronger opponents, Hisoka searched for the members of the infamous bandits, targeted one and replaced the said member. But since he wasn't getting anywhere with his plan, he chose to include Kurapika in his plan after approving his strength and determination to kill the members.

Their conversation was shortly interrupted by a phone call from Melody. He let the phone ring for a while, still staring at Hisoka who had proposed a great deal. Despite the little trust he had in him for multiple reasons, he knew that he was in fact after their leader. However, that motive wasn't enough to ensure that Hisoka wouldn't end up throwing him under the train once they were done with the deal. Hisoka was shady, so shady that not even the Phantom Troupe trusted him. After a couple of rings, Hisoka pointed out that his phone was ringing, and Kurapika eventually picked up, "Hello?"

"Kurapika, it's terrible," he was greeted by Melody's distressed voice, "The Phantom Troupe member escaped."

"What?!" Kurapika exclaimed in utter surprise, before looking back at Hisoka who was clearly listening in on the conversation. He proceeded to talk with a much quieter voice, "On his own?"

"No, the other members disguised themselves as the mafia and got him out."

"What about leader?"

"We are unable to contact him."

Hearing this, Kurapika knew that they had to prepare for the worst. "Okay, I'll return immediately!" He then put his phone back in his pocket, before looking at Hisoka. "I've got a question for you. What happened to the Scarlet eyes?" Of course the Scarlet eyes were his main concern, after all, he wouldn't have come this far if it wasn't for them. Chrollo had a bad habit of wanting rare, and hard to obtain artefacts. He would steal them, admire them for days until he got sick and tired of them. What happened to them afterwards was all up to him, though most of the objects just end up getting sold.

"I'm sorry, but I do not know. Like I said, I only joined two or three years back, so I was not involved in the massacre of your clan. However, the boss does tend to sell the items after admiring it for a while, and the Scarlet eyes are probably no exception." He explained, and Kurapika didn't seem very surprised by his answer. Although the idea of killing a whole clan just to own and admire dozens of pairs of their eyeballs was utterly sick and disgusting, it did fit their tainted reputation quite well. "Let me ask you again, do you want to fight the Spiders alone. Unless you crush it's head, it won't stop moving. I think it will be beneficial for both of us, don't you think? I'll crush the head while you tear off its limbs!"

Hisoka seemed set on making him part of his plan, and at that point Kurapika decided to leave the place. "I'll meet you again tomorrow. Same place, same time." Hisoka's lips curved upwards as he watched him leave. His response made it clear that he was at least interested in the plan and will give him an answer before thinking about it a little more. With the bait being laid out, Hisoka just had to wait for the fish to eventually stop swirling around it, and end up taking it.

After the short talk with Hisoka, Kurapika headed back to the hotel where Neon Nostrade was staying, as his fellow bodyguards were going to meet up there. In the silent room, everyone just looked at each other, wondering what they could do next in this situation. They were in a crisis, and all they could do was watch Neon sleep without a worry, wanting to wake her up and inform her of the situation.

"Boss?" Feeling a light shaking on her shoulder slowly awoke the sleeping princess, making her open her eyes to a room full of her many bodyguards. With her still half asleep voice, she asked for the time. "It's currently two in the morning."

"Two a.m?!" She exclaimed in surprise, "What about the auction?!"

"It was called off."

"Why, what happened?" Her team of bodyguards was bombarded by questions from the young girl, who wasn't aware of the seriousness of the situation they were all in. "Why was it called off?"

"Some thieves broke in," Kurapika informed her, before regretfully delaying the information of the death of their fellow colleagues. The deceased bodyguards were all pretty new and joined at the same time as Kurapika, so Neon wasn't too familiar with them.

"Eh, what?" She took a moment to digest everything, but it looked like she wasn't able to understand the severity of their current position. "So, what happened to the mummy I asked for?" After a short period of mourning, the young teen was able to recover pretty quickly, before asking when and where the next auction would be. Her sudden change in attitude caused some mixed responses from everyone around her. How she was still able to worry about her selfish wishes of acquiring pieces of inanimate objects to add to her collection baffled everyone. She looked so calm, not worrying the slightest bit about her own safety, but about the safety of the treasures on her wish list. Knowing that her father employed so many strong and talented bodyguards must have made her immune to fear, or that was at least what they thought. Nonetheless, with Neon being their boss, they couldn't exactly start expressing their own opinions. Everyone, including Kurapika bit their own tongues and asked for their next order from her.

"Eh, me?" She asked, blankly pointing at herself. There wasn't much she knew about these kind of affairs, and neither did her father ever teach her to make many decisions for herself. Neon remained a tool for Light's rise in fame among the mafia, and she herself seemed easily satisfied with the many gifts she got as a result. "Well, I don't really know much about this, but I can put daddy on the line, you can talk to him!"

Neon dialled the number on her pink cell phone and waited for it to ring a couple of times, before handing it to Kurapika, who then passed her phone to Squala. Squala was utterly surprised by the sudden responsibility put on his shoulders, "You want me to talk to him?"

"You are the most experienced out of all of us," Kurapika pointed out, "The rest of us joined quite recently, so you should take charge." The others quickly found themselves agreeing with Kurapika's opinion. Under the leadership of Dalzollene, Squala should have picked a couple of things up over the past couple of years, so he was a lot more appropriate for the job than anyone else for that matter.

"No, I'm not fit to be the leader!" Squala couldn't deal with the sudden pressure and expectations put on him, and refused to follow in Dalzollene's footsteps. By now, it was safe to assume that their former leader was already dead, so someone else had to take the lead, even if it was just temporary.

When the group was just looking around, hoping that someone might end up with an idea, Melody was the first one to make a suggestion, "I believe Kurapika should take lead. He was the one who captured the criminal, and he showed extremely good judgement and kept a cool head so far," she explained. Though she did notice Kurapika's sudden raise in blood pressure, it didn't change the fact that he was the best decision maker out of the remaining bodyguards. He was smart, always thought strategically, and whether or not he acted on personal grudges, he did do a good job in trying to keep calm at all times. "He would be the best leader."

The others ended up agreeing with Melody. Though he was fairly new to the job, and despite his young age, they couldn't deny the fact that Kurapika was already a natural leader. Even if it was only temporary, he would be the perfect fit for the role. After giving it some thought, Kurapika ended up accepting the offer. As soon as Light picked up, he proceeded to explain the situation to their real boss. Starting off with a self introduction as the temporary leader, and informing him of the death of their old leader's death, the news was a real shock to Light. Dalzollene worked under him for years now, and although he had seen bodyguards leave over the years, Dalzollene had always remained loyal. He was the strongest _Nen_ user he hired to this day, able to block ten bullets with ease, so it was hard for him to accept the death of such a strong bodyguard. Light's reaction was genuine, and he definitely sounded more affected by the news than his daughter. After hearing the Phantom Troupe being mentioned changed his mind about the seriousness of the situation. The last thing Light expected was the appearance of the notorious bandits at the auction, and he wanted his daughter to remain safe. He started off by asking Kurapika for his opinion, "So Kurapika, what do you suggest. I want to hear your opinion as the current leader!"

To Kurapika, Neon's safety was the top priority, so he requested to get her out of Yorkshin city first. Light wholeheartedly agreed, and said that he'd like to meet up with them the following day before officially appointing Kurapika as the new leader. After their conversation was over, he left the room, wanting to think of a new plan. Searching through the Hunter website for some information was his first step, and after finding quite a lot of information on the Nostrade family online, he figured it would be too dangerous for everyone to stay in their current room. Moving to a different hotel unnoticed would be difficult, so instead he ordered everyone to move into a different room, while he used the old room, waiting for the Phantom Troupe to pay them a little visit.

At the same time inside a random apartment, Shalnark was on the Hunter website, looking through the same information as Kurapika. Being one of the brains in the group, he was smart enough to easily figure out that the building Uvogin was held captive in belonged to the Nostrade family, hence making a link between the Nostrade family and the so-called chain bastard they were looking for. "Did you find anything, Shal?" Uvogin asked, chugging down another can of beer to wash the leeches out of his body.

"Yeah, quite a lot actually." He answered quite confidently, having a possible lead on who he was looking for. He explained that the chain bastard was possibly associated with the Nostrade family, and that there are quite a few buildings they owned in that city.

Amazed by the collection of information he managed to obtain in such little time, Uvogin asked whether he could get a list of all the possible places Kurapika could be staying at. "Can you get me a list?"

"Sure, consider it done!" After pressing a couple of buttons, Shalnark managed to get a whole list of places the Nostrades would be staying at, before writing down the locations on a scrap piece of paper and handing it over to Uvogin.

Uvogin began reading through the narrowed down list, "Thanks!"

"A thank you is really nice and all, but you need money to access the Hunter website," Shalnark pointed out, expecting Uvogin to pay the sum the website costed him.

"You know I don't carry around money, I'm practically broke!" He said in response, before thinking of another idea to pay Shalnark back. He leaned in closer to Shalnark, wanting to land a kiss on his lips, while Shalnark tried his best to push the larger man away. However, resistance was futile as Uvogin was physically the strongest out of the members. After landing a kiss on Shalnark's cheek, Uvogin then decided to head out and start his search.

But seeing him eagerly climb out the window made Shalnark call out to him once more, "Uvo!"

Uvogin stopped halfway hearing his comrade's voice, and then turned around to hear what he had to say, "Yeah, what is it?"

"Don't be too reckless!" Shalnark was worried, and had a bad feeling about all this, but Uvogin just gave him a confident smile and left. With this, the first night in Yorkshin city was finally over.

...

It was now five a.m in Yorkshin city. The sun started to rise and brighten up the dangerous streets of the city, making it much safer for normal civilians to wander around. Unaware of what was going on during the previous night, Gon, Killua, Himeko and Leorio were still fast asleep, until one decided to wake up and cause a ruckus. "Bucket and washcloth!" Himeko yelled, before she shot up from her sleep. "I swear I didn't oversleep, I'm sure Natsu is still asleep, so make him clean the dojo!" She then looked around and found herself sleeping on a bed instead of a futon. The room was a lot more chic and modern compared to the traditional japanese room back at the dojo, so it took her some time to remember that she was indeed not at the dojo anymore. After seeing her friends asleep, she remembered reaching Yorkshin, meeting up with everyone and setting out to raise enough money to buy an overpriced video game for Gon. Though it sounded like a dream now that she thought of it again, the fact that she was in a room with her friends proved that it wasn't.

"What are you doing kid, go back to sleep!" Leorio mumbled, still half asleep, before he tossed to the other side of the sofa and went back to sleep.

_"I completely forgot, I'm not at the dojo anymore,"_ she thought, _"Might as well make the most of it and sleep in a little." _Hoping that this was an opportunity to catch a few extra z's, Himeko closed her eyes before falling back onto her pillow. It was an opportunity to kick back and relax from the harsh and intense training she went through the past couple of months. After all, she expected everyone else to wake up in more than an hour, so she still had some time to catch up on sleep. Not even five minutes later, she started to toss and turn a lot. Having gotten too used to waking up at five, she couldn't get another minute of sleep, and it annoyed her. "I don't even care anymore. Just give me a washcloth and something to clean, I'll do it. But please don't make me sleep in!" She pleaded before getting out of her bed. "I can't take it anymore!"

"Stop being such a drama queen and go back to sleep, washboard," Killua groaned, irritated by all the constant whining, before he tossed over. "If you can't sleep, then at least shut up and let us sleep." Hearing this, he then looked over at Gon who was sleeping like a rock next to Killua, despite all of the noise in the room.

_"Next time, I'm taking Gon with me to the dojo,"_ she thought, watching him sleep so peacefully. _"At least I won't be the last one up then." _Himeko didn't know what to do anymore, and looked at the time once again, wanting to see how much time she actually managed to kill. It was 5:06 a.m, and seeing how tired everyone else was, she figured that they wouldn't wake up for a good few hours. She couldn't exactly blame them either, after all the walking around they did and the conditional auction, everyone especially Gon and Leorio who advertised the auction would be exhausted. Plus, she remember falling asleep before everyone else, so obviously she would have gotten a lot more sleep than them. Knowing that there was a long day ahead of them, she decided not to disturb the boys and quietly made her way into the bathroom, wanting to start off her morning with a nice, warm shower, hoping that would freshen her up and prepare her for the day ahead.

Before she got into the shower though, she turned on the radio that was already in the bathroom, and started humming along to some songs that were playing, and improvising lyrics she didn't know. She used the little bottle of shampoo and conditioner provided to them by the hotel, as well using one of the little bars of soaps. This was the first time she stayed in a hotel after getting a Hunter license, and seeing the room and the treatment they got, she could really get used to it all. Once she was done, she stepped out and began drying her hair with the provided white hotel towel, and once it was dry enough, she proceeded to use the hairdryer. Compared to the short hair she had before, her longer hair obviously took much longer to dry, and since she needed to head out as soon as the boys were ready, she didn't have the time to wait for it to air dry. While drying her hair, she continued to sing along to the songs playing on the small, portable radio.

"Someone, make it stop!" Killua groaned, while trying to cover his ears with his pillow. With Himeko's singing from the bathroom, there was also Leorio who now started snoring from the other side of the room making it worse for Killua. He looked over at Gon, seeing how he was still sleeping like a rock. Eventually, the sound of the hairdryer stopped, and Killua began to relax a little, but that didn't stop Himeko from singing. When he couldn't bear the noise level anymore, he got out of his bed and stormed up to the bathroom door, before loudly banging on the door, "Come out of the bathroom, _now_!" he demanded.

For a moment, there was no sound coming from inside the bathroom, and Killua just stood there waiting for an answer. At some point, Himeko just yelled out a response, "No!"

"Why not?"

"I'm changing!"

"Why?"

"What do you mean why?" She asked in an annoyed voice. "It's unacceptable to walk around naked in this time of age, we are civilised human beings!"

"No, I meant why are you so loud this early in the morning?"

"Suck it up, if this was the dojo, then my Sensei would have whooped your ass for still being in bed!"

"I don't care what _your_ Sensei does, just keep it quiet!"

"Okaay!" She replied, in a sing-songy voice. Killua still waited outside the door until she turned the volume of the radio down before returning back to bed, but although her voice was much quieter now, and Leorio was only snoring occasionally, he just couldn't fall back asleep. After years of training, the ex-assassin had developed extremely sharp ears, a requirement for his previous occupation, so even a quiet, barely audible radio, occasional snoring and a soft humming was still able to sound loud and clear to him.

Back inside the bathroom, Himeko started getting dressed. After doing a few final checks in the mirror, she proceeded to examine her hair. It reached a few inches below her shoulders, and she remembered how her hair barely touched them back during the Hunter exams. There wasn't much she could do with short hair, and lacking the creativity, she just left her hair all the time. But after seeing how long she still had left, she wanted to use the opportunity to try out different hairstyles. Once she was done experimenting, it was already six, and she decided to step out just in case the boys woke up and wanted to use the bathroom. After opening the door and looking up, she screamed and fell back onto the floor. Killua stood right in front of the door as she opened it, crossing his arms and waiting for her to come out, so he could have a go at her. Himeko couldn't help but lightly rub her own butt after the sudden fall, "Ow, my butt!"

Killua also seemed to have his fair shares of complaints to make, "Ouch, my eardrums!" he winced in pain, after that sudden high-pitched scream hit his ears, leaving a long, constant ringing sound echo through his ears. However, these two weren't the only ones caught up in the commotion.

"Bring it on, Hisoka!" Gon shouted, and immediately shot up after hearing the scream. His eyes scanned around the hotel for any sign of enemies, but there were none. He seemed to be having a bad dream about fighting Hisoka, and suddenly woke up after hearing a scream that sounded like Himeko's. It took him a couple of moments to distinguish dreams from reality, and after looking around the hotel room, he realised that there was in fact no danger, and that Himeko was safe and sound.

"Killua, the next time you want to use the toilet, try knocking on the door instead of waiting right in front of it and giving me a heart attack," Himeko began to complain as she got back up on her feet. "You really caused a commotion here, even Gon woke up because of you."

_"Me causing a commotion?"_ Killua asked himself angrily, _"How did I wake up Gon, it was all your doing!"_

"What's with the commotion so early?" Leorio yawned, hearing an argument going on so early in the morning. He got off the sofa, stretched and ignored the youngsters before walking into the bathroom. Seeing how things were finally back to normal and much quieter, Gon crashed back down onto his pillow, hoping to get at least five more minutes of sleep, only to be kicked off the bed by Killua.

"You've slept enough, wake up!" He began to shout at Gon, before throwing Gon's pillow at him.

"What was that for?" Gon yelled back, stumbling back on his feet before he started arguing with Killua. "I was just going to close my eyes until the toilet was free to use, I wasn't actually going to sleep!"

"Are you two really tired?" Himeko asked, seeing how loud the two could be right after waking up, "You look like you have more than enough energy to keep you going for a week."

"How am I supposed to sleep with you singing in the bathroom?" Killua shifted his target from Gon to her, blaming her for making him wake up in the first place. "You just wouldn't shut up for the whole past hour!"

"I don't think I'm that bad at singing though," she started defending her own singing abilities with full confidence, "I took singing lessons when I was younger, so I at least know the basics!"

"Eh, Kou was singing?" Gon was surprised to hear this news, as he couldn't recall hearing anyone's singing voice that morning, "I never heard anything!"

"That's because you were lying on your bed like a dead person in a coffin," Killua shot back at Gon, "Of course you wouldn't hear anything, you were sleeping like a rock!"

"It's both of your faults for staying up so late," Himeko interrupted them, reminding them that they were up way past their set curfews, "You had to be told to go to sleep by Leorio last night, and only went to bed after he came back from wherever he went!"

"I thought you were asleep!" Killua was the first to question whether she was actually asleep, or just faking it. "Or, you were just faking it and planned to stay awake to learn all of our boyish secrets," he accused her, pretending to have caught her red-handed in some sort of scandalous act, hoping that would change the embarrassing subject.

"No, I was actually asleep," she said, before starting to explain her ability to stay alert during her sleep, "But I've managed to train myself to become a lot more alert to my surroundings while I'm asleep." After reminding the boys that she had to spend a week in a forest full of intelligent, mythical creatures, she couldn't afford to let those outsmart her. She could either stay awake throughout the week, or sleep while being alert of her surroundings at the same time. Whichever she did, she had to ensure that she didn't end up as a midnight snack.

"So, you heard us talk?" Gon asked, hoping she would answer his only question instead of dragging it all out. To this, Himeko admitted having heard parts of their conversation, but there wasn't much she could pick up over all. She went on to explain how she could overhear the trio at the dojo have their nightly boy talk session, and then pretending not to know their deepest and darkest secrets, playing the innocent little girl they thought she was. Initially amazed by how much she had learnt in such a short amount of time, Gon and Killua were also a little frightened by how skilled she had become.

"So…" Killua dragged on his words.

"Yes, I know about the movie Killua," she beat him to it, making Killua mentally face-palm.

Hearing this, Gon began lecturing her, "See, I told you not to watch it!" It wasn't the fact that he was embarrassed about it, neither did he care about her opinion on this matter. But the feeling of getting constantly judged by Himeko wasn't the greatest, neither did he want her to constantly bring this matter up to make him look like the walking personification of perverseness.

"No, you did not. You didn't say anything," Killua defended himself, "You just said you didn't want to join me, but you clearly didn't tell me not to watch it."

"Well, it doesn't matter now!" Himeko shrugged, wanting to conclude this topic once and for all, "At least you were wearing headphones, the boys at the dojo openly talked about dirtier things than that!" Gon and Killua were impressed by how good her awareness of the surrounding during her sleep, but at the same time it made them wonder how much stronger she had gotten in terms of _Nen_ ability. They knew that it took her long to learn _Nen_ just by meditation alone, but she figured it out in just a day when their teacher Wing explained how it would usually take weeks, months or even years to get this far with this method. The sole reason they were able learn it in a day was because of Baptism, and the fact that they were forced to learn in a short period of time, but both Gon and Killua were confident that if she travelled with them to Heaven's Tower, she would have undergone the same method of training and succeeded in it. "But seriously Killua, do keep at least an one metre distance from me at all times. Also, try to avoid any physical contact with me, or direct eye contact. Actually, you know what? Just don't talk to me unless you are required to do so."

"What am I?" he asked, offended by that statement, "Am I some kind of plague?"

"Yeah, kinda like that," She answered, "Possibly worse, I'd consider you the walking definition of a perverted twelve year old ex-assassin with too much time on his hand."

"I'll bet you any amount of money that I'm not the only one," Killua tried defending himself.

"No, I object with your statement," she interrupted before he was able to make a point, "Gon and Kurapika are saints, and they are both older than you! It's only Leorio, and mini Leorio which would be you. Actually, I'll bet you any amount of money that the old geezer has some kind of porn mag hidden inside his briefcase!"

Knowing that her statement had some truth to it, Killua then tried to change the topic, not wanting to accept loss. He turned to the bathroom door before loudly banging on it, "Hey old man, stop taking so long in the toilet. I need to piss!"

"You were standing in front of the toilet for god knows how long before I woke up, and after Kou came out, where did your need to piss go then?" Leorio shouted back from inside the bathroom, making Killua shut up momentarily to think of a good come back. However, after going back and forth, their argument finally came to a hold after Himeko decided to interrupt.

"Jokes aside, let's all get ready and go to get some breakfast. We have to find a better way to make money," Himeko pointed out, getting them back on track. "With yesterday's earnings, we roughly have around eight million so far, but we still have a long way to go! The conditional auction was great, but we have to come up with a better way to earn money sooner or later once the hype of Gon's arm wresting match has finally calmed down."

"We can check out the antiques we bid on yesterday too," Gon suggested, reminding them of the open auction they participated in.

"Yeah, that sounds like a plan!" Killua said, agreeing with the schedule they had planned out for the day, "I just hope that Zepile guy didn't try to top our bid again." He reminded them of the mysterious bidder who topped each of their bids, and just thinking about it made them all sigh.

"Well, we'll just have to keep working on it," Gon lightened the mood up again. "We still have a few days until the auctions, so I'm guessing we can do it!" Leorio exited the toilet and let Killua in. He then told Gon and Himeko that he had a brilliant plan in mind, and the two trusted him as his arm wrestling plan actually got them quite a lot of money. With everyone ready to leave, they headed out of the hotel to grab some breakfast, before planning to get back to work.


	24. Making Money

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 23**

_Making Money_

_..._

"So, what's this new idea of yours?" Himeko asked Leorio, as she was eating her chocolate croissant. Not wanting to waste much time, they decided to get something simple from a nearby bakery first on the way to wherever Leorio was leading them to, before getting something better to eat for lunch. Leorio's announcement of a new plan made the three youngsters quite curious, especially after seeing how much his first, ridiculous plan made them. Although Leorio was the last person they expected to come up with these plans, he sure knew how to make cash out on the streets. It was certainly impressive, and that brought back the kind of conditions Leorio was raised in. Earning money was certainly not easy as a child, and Himeko out of all people knew that. When imagining a much younger Leorio looking for jobs, she imagined him only being able to get a job as a newspaper boy and not getting paid properly. _"Now that I think of it, he's quite smart when it comes to these things!"_

"Will it make more money than yesterday?" Gon asked, chewing on his piece of bread.

"You two, stop talking with food in your mouth!" Killua scolded the two on their bad manners, before taking a big bite into his own pastry, "It's rude!"

Seeing how he was contradicting himself, Gon was the first one to point at Killua, and point out how he was practically doing the same thing, "You're talking with food in your mouth too!"

Leorio was thinking whether his new plan could possibly work out, while sipping on his morning coffee. It was all a gamble after all, and there was only a small chance for his plan to work out. However, he knew it would eventually work out in their favour, but they might have to wait for days until their fish appears. "We'll be getting more profit than yesterday, but I'm not sure how much more!" He answered, still in his own thoughts. The three trusted Leorio; after all, thanks to him they were able to earn quite a lot of money yesterday. Way more than they would have ever earned by themselves in just one day.

As they continued to walk further into the streets leading away from the city's core, the trio started to notice something. Even Himeko, who was hopeless at getting around by herself was able to recall walking down the same path before. But as most alleys tend to look the same, the trio kept their thoughts to themselves and proceeded to let Leorio lead the way. However, after some time Killua couldn't keep ignoring the fact that they were heading in the same direction as the previous day, "Doesn't this place look familiar?" he asked, looking around the alley way. Leorio on the other hand just ignored his question and continued to lead the way to their destination.

At some point, Leorio came to a hold, making the other three stop walking too. He turned around, "Tah-dah!" he beamed proudly. They proceeded to check the area out again, even finding some of the litter left by some contestants from the previous day. This was definitely the same place as yesterday, and once that managed to click into their heads, Killua casually walked up to him, kicked his shin and walked back. "Ouch, you brat! That hurt!"

"Um, Leorio. Are you sure you didn't hit your head in the toilet or anything?" Himeko asked, before she began to raise her voice at the elder. "I'm pretty sure we were here for the whole fucking day yesterday!"

"Yes, and we are going to continue. I never said anything about doing anything different from what we did yesterday," he pointed out, still rubbing his shin to soothe the pain. "Gon, take you place, Kou, get into your position with the diamond ring, and Killua, you organise the line and collect the entry free from the contestants!"

Gon looked at his two friends to see whether they had anything to say, before looking back at Leorio, "But Leorio, we did this yesterday!" he started to groan.

"He's right, it's not going to work," Killua added, hoping they could somehow knock some sense into their elder, "We can't keep scamming people like this. They will eventually see through our act and stop participating all together."

"Just trust me on this one!" He reassured, trying to gain the trio's trust on his new plan. It did sound a lot more ridiculous than their previous plan, but it was their previous plan that got them this far. They never noticed this, but Leorio did put a lot of thought into his plan, spending a couple of hours last night to snoop around, advertising their conditional auction even more. Gon was the first one to agree, putting all his trust in him, and seeing this, Himeko and Killua eventually agreed with his plan too. After they've managed to come to an agreement, they decided to follow Leorio's instructions and take their places, before he went and attracted a crowd, just like he did on the previous day. Gon grew quite popular overnight, so it didn't take too long for a decent crowd to gather, but unfortunately, there was no one willing to stand in the line and take on the challenge. In fact, rumours went around, talking about how strong the competitor really was despite his cute and innocent looks.

"Did you hear?" They were able to hear one man whispering to the other. "The kid took on five hundred guys yesterday, and they all lost."

"No way!" The other one exclaimed, trying to keep his voice down. The pair was right at the front, so if these rumours were indeed strong it could lead them into heaps of trouble if Gon and the others were to hear; or that was at least what they thought.

"Yes, they were all twice, or even three times his size," the man continued telling his stories, over exaggerating bits and pieces to make these children sound a lot more terrifying than they actually were. "I heard that the kid doing the arm wresting was raised in the woods by gorillas." The men turned and looked at Gon who was innocently smiling, and even waving back at them. Seeing how his appearance was the opposite of how he looked like, they gulped before turning their attention to the next target of their gossip; Killua.

"Hey, what about the kid with the slanted eyes?" Someone else in the crowd whispered. "Look at the way he is glaring at us, he definitely looks a lot more intimidating than the kid doing the arm wrestling. I'm sure he's a lot stronger than him too!"

"Really? No wonder they left such a young child in charge of dealing with such a massive crowd."

But this wasn't where the rumours stopped. "Want to know something else? I heard he is a pro-assassin hired by a lot by the mafia."

"No way! The mafia?!" Their rumours on how strong he looked compared to Gon certainly did boost Killua's ego, and he occasionally turned to both Gon and Himeko to give them a proud smirk, seeing how he was labelled as the most skilled out of the trio. But as the rumours started to get ridiculous, he began to glare at the folk in front of him, especially seeing how his friends started to snicker at his over confidence. His glare sent a cold shiver down their spines, and unable to look him in his icy, cold eyes anymore, they changed their target. "What about that girl with the ring?"

Himeko mentally prepared herself to hear the dumbest rumours, trying to ignore their loud whispering. "Girl? I heard that isn't even a girl," another man added, whilst Himeko just kept smiling, not wanting to ruin their business. "It's actually a boy dressed up as a girl." Just that moment, she heard a snort coming from both Leorio and Killua, who were both busy trying to control their laughter. Gon too looked slightly amused by whatever comments they had to say about her, obviously knowing that none of them were actually true.

"A boy? I heard that's not even a human. It's a cyborg, or an android, or something like that. I mean, who has such an unnatural eye colour? I've never even seen that shade of blue before."

"Android? No wonder they let her, or him, or it guard the diamond!" However, when they looked back up to make sure whether anyone has heard them, they froze seeing how Himeko was forcing out a smile, mouthing a few words in response. They started reading her lips, '_Do-you-want-to-die?'._ Although the crowd was just making up random facts about the three on the spot, some of the things they said, such as Gon being brought up surrounded by nature, Killua being a well renown assassins, and Himeko being a modified human being were ironically true. Being done with the children, they then turned their attention to Leorio, "What about that man?"

"Oh, him? He's probably just their manager!"

"Stop this crap and get in a bloody line!" Leorio shouted, overhearing the comment they said about him. However, although he had officially announced the start of the conditional auction, just like Gon, Killua and Himeko predicted earlier on, there wasn't anyone who was brave enough to face Gon. Leorio continued trying to hype up the audience with an even louder voice, wanting to reel in even more fish. "Gather up to face our wonder child Gon, in the hopes of wining a brand new, diamond ring worth millions!"

Gon, Killua and Himeko just watched him, losing their confidence in him little by little, before they all looked at each other with worried expressions. "Do you think it will work out?" Gon whispered over to his two friends, and in the end, all they could do was wait patiently for Leorio to fully fill them in on his new plan.

Just as their faith in Leorio was gradually declining, eventually a much bigger man appeared in front of the crowd, "Excuse me, I'd like to try." The man in a black suit stepped forward, along with two much bigger men on his side. Their appearances was more than enough to garner attention, seeing how they didn't look like ordinary folks. No, these men gave off a much more dangerous aura; they were clearly from the underworld. The crowd watch in awe as one of his henchmen stepped forward, someone who was a giant compared to his little competitor. "Not me, but one of my men will take your challenge."

_"There is our fish,"_ Leorio thought, seeing one of the two henchman taking a seat on the crate opposite to Gon. _"All I have to do now is catch it!"_

"His hand is tiny," the larger, much bulkier man complained, comparing the size of his hand to the little Gon's. "it doesn't even reach me." Hearing this, Leorio knew that this was the perfect opportunity to jump in and take over the situation.

"In that case, I'd like to take his place." Leorio volunteered, shocking the three youngsters at first. Although Leorio looked quite confident with himself, they weren't sure whether they should actually let him take over when the bodyguard was still a lot taller, and much more built than him. However he then gave the trio a reassuring nod, informing them that this was all part of his own plan. Gon stood up and moved away from his throne, letting Leorio take over as the alley's arm wrestling king. Leorio sat down on the crate in front of his much bulkier competitor, and Killua naturally took over Leorio's role as temporary host. He quickly ran through the rules, before counting down from three to start the game. However, it didn't even take a second for Leorio to win the match, breaking the wooden table they were having the match on in half.

He managed to leave quite an impression on the crowd, having gone as far as breaking the table into two pieces; something not even Gon had done. The round of silence was broken as the man dressed in black began to clap, and he was soon joined by everyone else in the audience who were left awestruck by the immense strength and talent of this small group of teenagers. After the hype calmed down, Leorio stood up from the crate, and was soon approached by the man who was wanting to initiate a conversation with this un-scouted talent. "You are quite strong. The streets are no place for you, there is a better place," he informed him, before handing him a plain white business card with black writing. It was nothing too fancy, and certainly nothing that was meant to be attention seeking. Leorio started to read the very little writing on it. "Go to this address, and you might be able to earn money you can't even imagine."

"Thanks, but I'm not a fighter!" Leorio was quick to turn down the man's offer, but he didn't hesitate presenting him with the three pre-teens standing right behind him. "These three are a lot stronger than me, so they will come."

"Well in that case, it's all good!" He said, before preparing to leave the alley. "Make sure to come along, I'm sure talent like yours will be welcome over there."

The quartet watched the man walk out, followed by both of his bodyguards. After realising that the auction wasn't going to be continued, the crowd also started to disperse after all the excitement was over. Once they were finally left alone, Leorio triumphantly stared at the business card he received, and turned to the trio to express his joy. "Let's go and have a proper breakfast now, it's my treat!" This was a sign for the kids to finally smile, they knew whatever Leorio had planned out has worked out. "We can visit this place afterwards."

Leorio took them to the same restaurant as he did yesterday, and once the four placed their brunch orders, he began to explain the plan he managed to craft out the previous day. That whole day of arm-wrestling Gon did to earn money was all a way to gain publicity amongst some of the underground gangs. He also explained that he was actually hanging up posters to advertise their conditional auction last night, hoping to draw in a couple of big shots who were in the search for strong fighters. Thanks to Gon's strength and Leorio's brains and efforts, a plan that could have taken days to work out, only took one day to succeed.

"How much can we make there?" Gon asked curiously, hoping he could fill them in on what was on the business card, and how that place was going to help them make more money.

Leorio told them everything the man in black had told him, not leaving out one single detail. To Gon and Himeko, this all sounded quite new; a world they would have never guessed they'd step in. Killua on the other hand knew exactly what their elder was talking about, having had a taste of the underworld himself. "He said we can make more than we can imagine. Let's just say that we can make a lot more than we did with the arm wrestling scam."

"They are looking for strong fighters, so it must be a place where they put two people against each other with an audience betting on who will win," Killua added, recalling that these kinds of events weren't that uncommon for the mafia community. Although he had never attended one himself, he was pretty well informed on how they worked. "The man from earlier was probably part of the mafia community, so this whole event must be hosted by them."

"So, the winners will get a share of the betting money?" Himeko asked, trying to make sense of everything Leorio and Killua had just explained.

"Precisely, and we are talking about millions for just one fight." Leorio answered, before putting down his white, ceramic coffee mug. "The mafia community is quite big, and I'd imagine them enjoying these things to flaunt their money."

"That makes a lot of sense," she started to agree with his point. "When you are rich, there are times when you don't know what to do with all that money. I guess throwing out money at these events would show how powerful you are compared to other families. It's also a matter of pride." When she stopped talking, she looked around to see all eyes on her, almost as if all three of them were judging on how much she suddenly knew about the subject. "Don't worry guys, I never took part in these kind of things."

"Anyway, you know quite a lot about this, Leorio." Killua pointed out, raising a brow at him in suspicion. "What exactly was on that medical entrance exam paper?"

"Well, unlike you kids, I actually decided to do my homework before coming here!"

"If it wasn't for Leorio, we would have never raised this much money," Gon added, defending Leorio's extensive knowledge on the whole underground community, "We should definitely go and check out that place on the card!"

"What are waiting for then?" Himeko asked, sipping on her orange juice. "The sooner we start, the more we'll get to fight, and hence the more money we'll earn!" Once Leorio paid the bill, he led them to the address on the business card. As expected, security was quite high around the entrance, and guards were going as far as securing the whole perimeter. After Leorio showed them the business card, they were allowed inside. They were escorted down the stairs, until they finally reached a large, underground arena with a wrestling ring in its centre. The crowd watching was roaring, waiting for blood to be shed during the matches.

"Look at how excited the crowd is!" Gon exclaimed as he looked around the arena. The excitement was certainly very contagious, and this reminded him of Heaven's arena, so he was already familiar with this kind of atmosphere.

"Say, you've never fought an arena battle before, right?" Killua asked Himeko, knowing that she was just as clueless as Gon when it came to these kinds of things. Gon didn't know what to do at Heaven's arena either, and unless Killua gave him a word of advice, he would have certainly wasted a lot of energy during all the easier battles.

She shook her head in response, "Nope, this is going to be my first time."

"Then let me tell you how to do this. Most of the contestants here don't have knowledge of _Nen_ or anything equivalent to that, so even if you don't use _Nen,_ you'll still be a lot stronger." He explained, before going on to give her a word of advice. "Don't use too much brute force on one opponent, you need to save the energy to take out as many as you can."

Himeko was able to click on quite fast, and understand exactly what Killua was instructing her to do. "So, you are telling me to hold back?"

"Yes, that's what I'm after. Gon and I have just used one strike on each of our opponents in Heaven's arena until we reached the 200th floor. Well, for me there was one exception." Killua was referring about Zushi, whom he had to knock out of the ring in order to stop fighting. But that was because Zushi was aware of _Nen_ before Killua and Gon had any knowledge of it. Yet, thinking about how strong Zushi was physically back then, Killua was blown away what he thought was pure determination back then. He remember being dumbstruck each and every time Zushi stood back up to continue fighting; it was a feeling he still couldn't forget to this day. Zushi's knowledge of _Nen_ was able to shatter his over-confidence, and make him doubt himself for at least a split second.

"Exception?"

"It's a long story, I'll tell you once we're are done here."

Suddenly, all the lights dimmed, and the only ray of light shone on the ring where the host appeared. "Ladies and gentlemen, we will start this event without any further delay. Today, we will play a game of hide and seek." Some of the other organisers of the event handed out leaflets with seven faces on them to everyone in the audience. "There are seven people on your handout. If you find one of them and bring them back to us, dead or alive we will give you two billion jenny." The mention of two billion jenny got the crowd talking. Some members of the audiences went as far as getting their phones out to set out a search group for these seven people.

While everyone was caught up in the commotion, Gon was the first one to notice something unusual on the piece of paper that was handed out. His eyes scanned the pictures and were able to immediately identify one of their targets. "This girl, isn't this the girl I arm wrestled yesterday?" Gon asked, pointing at the picture of the woman in oversized frames.

"You are right, but why would they want her?" Leorio questioned.

Just then, Killua overheard some men talking. As Gon, Leorio and Himeko continued to debate about all the possible reasons their mystery woman appeared on the leaflet, Killua kept his ears out for any information he could get on the matter. Once he was able to gather just enough information, he started to put all the pieces together and came up with a logical conclusion. "Let's get out of here for now, I think I might know what's going on." He announces as he led the way out of the building. As instructed by Killua, Leorio paid the entry fee for the event before the quartet headed over to a quiet and uncrowded park, where they could begin to devise a plan.

"What are we waiting for?" Gon asked his friends. "One of them is worth two billion jenny, so if we find all seven, we'll have sixteen billion!"

"It's fourteen billion, Gon!" Himeko corrected. "Besides, I thought we were meant to fight in the arena just like Killua explained earlier. Why would they suddenly tell us to go out and find a bunch of people, and give us two billion for each head?"

"That's exactly what I've been thinking!" Leorio agreed with her reasoning. "They even had a ring set up for us to fight, but it looked like they had a sudden change in plan. I can't think of a reason why though!"

"It was a sudden change of plan!" Killua confirmed confidently, before going on to explain his theory on the whole situation. "The mafia wants these guys found as soon as possible for some reason, so whoever they are, they must have done something to turn the whole mafia community against them. I overheard someone talking about the underground auction being crashed and the merchandise being stolen, so I'm assuming these guys were the ones who stole all the merchandise."

"Whoever these guys are, they must be hella strong. The mafia is getting ordinary citizen involved since they can't handle them alone, so we must be careful!" Leorio added.

"You know, could these people be the Phantom Troupe?" Himeko asked, examining the individual pictures on the leaflet once again. "I mean, we did agree to meet here because Hisoka told us that they'll be here, right? Breaking into the underground auction, guarded by the entire mafia community, and then stealing all the items that were up for auction. It sounds like something they'd pull off, these were the exact same people that massacred a whole clan just to steal their eyes after all." But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get her head around how surprisingly normal these seven individuals on the leaflet looked. Even Shizuko, whom they had all encountered on the previous day was someone she could pass by on the streets, and she wouldn't be able to tell her apart from the rest of the crowd. This just made the world seem like a much crazier place to live in.

"The Phantom Troupe? We should tell Kurapika about this then." Gon suggested, knowing that their initial motive was to help Kurapika find the troupe. Hearing his suggestion, Leorio just hoped for the best and decided to call their friend. He took out his phone, before dialling Kurapika's number. However, no matter how much he tried, he just couldn't get through to him.

"He isn't picking up."

"Forget him for now, he will find out sooner or later with all these flyers going around the city! Who knows, he might already be on their trail while we are talking." Killua interrupted, telling Leorio to put his phone away. He knew the missing link was possibly the smartest out of the group, so he would have already found a way to trail the troupe. It wasn't Kurapika who needed the help, it was them who needed it the most.

"Then what do you suggest we do?" Himeko asked, knowing Killua might have some sort of plan thought out. With Kurapika away, she knew that Killua was the only one they could rely on when it came to these kinds of things. Leorio had already done quite a lot, and the conditional auction event he set up made them see him in a brand new light. However, no matter how crafty he was when it came to tricking citizens, Killua was the most experienced when it came to trailing people. After all, he had been playing similar games of hide and seek since he was little, so naturally he would be the one they should turn to in this situation.

As everyone else turned to him for advice, Killua began to think. "We should go after them ourselves, we did pay the entry fee after all. But, we just need to collect more information on them right now. We don't know where they might be, or whether they are still in Yorkshin. They caused such a big scene at the underground auction yesterday, so they might have just decided to take the stolen goods and escape."

"The Hunter website?" Gon suggested.

"Yeah right, more like _rip off_ website!" Himeko was quick to reject that idea straight away, complaining about the high charges. "We'll probably end up spending all the money we have on bits and pieces of information we already know."

"But the Hunter website is the most reliable way to get information," Leorio pointed out, before thinking of another idea. "We can give out a reward to people who provide us with reliable information."

"We'll get way too much information that way. Most of them would probably be lies, and the auction would be over by the time we get through every single reply!" Killua objected, remembering how many people replied the last time they used this method to gather information about Greed Island. But he was right, they couldn't trust any ordinary website to collect information as most people would just try to scam them with false pieces of information. However, the Hunter website required money, and it did sometimes feel like you were being ripped off.

"In that case, you can prevent them from lying." Leorio came up with another suggestion. "You can just say that the troupe was last spotted in Yorkshin at the underground auctions, so this way we won't get too many replies. We could also ask them to provide us a picture or any other sort of evidence of them being there."

"Really now? A picture? People can get killed if they snap a picture of them."

"In any case, we still need money whether we use the Hunter website or an alternative website," Himeko pointed out, summing up their current financial crisis. "And we still don't even have enough money for the auction." Once they realised how they needed money to execute all of their plans, the quartet was back to square one. While Himeko, Leorio and Killua thought of a way to make some more money, Gon took out his Hunter license and showed it to them.

"You aren't really going to do this, are you?" Killua asked him for the sixth time now, but Gon was set on what he wanted to do. He took them to the nearest pawn shop, where he gave in his Hunter license away in exchange for a loan.

"We will start charging interest if you do not pay back the amount by the 16th of this month," the lady at the counter informed him, as she ran through the full procedure in detail, having to inform her client about everything written in the contract. Once she was done talking, Gon still decided to sign the papers and got one hundred million Jenny transferred into his bank account.

"He was actually serious about this…" Leorio whispered over to the other two, noticing how serious Gon's expression was when signing the papers.

Gon turned around and triumphantly showed off the new balance in his bank book. "Look, we've got a start now!"

"Yes, but that's not even close!" Leorio pointed out the sum that was still no where close to a billion.

"What are you talking about, we still have two Hunter licenses we can use to get money." Killua felt it was appropriate to throw in a little joke, looking at Leorio and Himeko who were clearly not amused by it. However, he still managed to get a small chuckle out of Gon before laughing at his own joke.

"Or we can just sell Killua since he doesn't have a Hunter license to get money." Himeko shot back. "He probably doesn't have much value, but everything counts right now!"

"That's a great idea! If we need more money, we'll just bring Killua to the pawn shop." Leorio added, snickering as the table had suddenly turned.

"Shut it old man!"

_"We still need more money,"_ Himeko thought to herself, while Killua and Leorio were busy arguing at the back. _"We need a lot more than just eight billion if we are going to give out a reward for the whereabouts of the Phantom Troupe." _Her thoughts travelled back and forth just like a ping-pong ball, and there weren't many ideas she got. There were only a couple of days left until the auctions began, so they couldn't just start a part time job to earn the money, and neither could they afford to waste time on anything unproductive. Only one idea was able to get stuck inside her head, and although it was guaranteed to work, she was still quite half-hearted about giving up something that she considered part of her. But since she couldn't think of anything else, she still decided to go through with it. "Hey, can we make a stop somewhere. I think I have an idea."

Since someone finally managed to come up with an idea, Killua and Leorio finally stopped spewing insults at each other and looked at her. Gon too was curious having watched how intensely she had been working her brain. All three of them knew that she was capable of thinking of solutions to all kinds of problems, so they all hoped that she would have finally thought of an idea to aid Gon in his quest to make money. "Sure, what is it?" Gon asked, however, the young girl just smiled at them, before silently leading the way. Gon, Killua and Leorio all looked at each other, but since no one else had any better suggestions, they decided to follow her.

"I'll tell you once we get there!" She informed them, as they managed to catch up to her. Obviously, the boys didn't know what she meant by that, so they just followed her quietly. After asking a couple of by-passers, Himeko managed to safely lead them to their destination. The boys looked up at the little store, with a very vintage and antique feel to it. However, her idea confused the trio a bit as she ended up leading them to a nearby jewellery store.

"I hope we are here to make money, and not to waste more!" Killua was the first person to question her decision, but Himeko didn't respond. After opening the front door, she entered the store and was soon followed by the boys who were curious to see what she was planning to do.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing," she reassured quietly, before she decided to walk over to the counter. Hearing the bell ring after the door was opened, the store clerk came out of the staff room to greet his customers. However, he was slightly disheartened to see young children instead of the rich, tourist couple he had hoped for. Nonetheless, he watched the younger customer scan through the selection of jewellery and stones on display, waiting for her to make a request. The boys eventually joined her, gawking at all the precious, and shining metals and crystals around. The whole store must have been worth a whole fortune, and the boys couldn't help but look around in awe. Himeko then looked up at the employee, "Do you buy stuff?"

"Yes, we certainly do buy jewellery." He answered, wondering why this girl was asking him such a question. Just looking at her, he could see that she wasn't particularly rich, or well off enough to have anything valuable enough to sell at an high end store. However, with all the open auctions around, he did grow curious that she might have found something valuable lying around. "Do you perhaps have anything to offer?"

"Kou, we don't have anything to sell!" Leorio pointed out, not understanding where she was trying to head with all this. The last time they saw her wearing anything remotely expensive was when she visited the side clan, but knowing how much pride the twelve year old had, he doubted that she kept anything from then. "Let's get out of here."

"Nope, I do have something!" She pointed out, before taking off one of her earrings to show him. Once she convinced Leorio, she proceeded to hand the earring over to the store clerk for him to analyse and estimate its value.

"But those are just your everyday earrings," Leorio reminded her, "You always wear them, they wouldn't sell for much."

Himeko just sighed, seeing how he must have clearly forgotten what kind of family she was from. But with the store owner around, she didn't want to bluntly say out that she was from the Inoue clan, and tried to vaguely explain why those old earrings were indeed worth a lot more than they initially thought. "Those were actually passed down my family for generations," she explained, "They can go for quite a lot of money!"

"Stop, don't sell it!" Gon interrupted after hearing about the origins of those earrings. They were simply too expensive for her to give up for him, but that wasn't the only thing that bugged him. With her family dead, those earrings were probably the only memento she had left from her clan, and they were also the only reminder of her heritage. They were part of her identity now, and although Gon had heard her complain about her clan a lot, he had also never seen her take those earrings off. At the end of the day, no matter how much she made it sound like she hated her family, deep inside she still cared enough to keep that piece of jewellery so safely. "It's something that was passed down to you by your family, and I don't want you to sell it for me. We can think of other ways to make money, but you shouldn't sell something that's so precious to you!"

"There is no family anymore, so don't you think it's kinda pointless for me to have these? I'm not sure if there ever will be a clan again, but even if there is one in the future, I'm not going to be part of it. There won't be anyone that would inherit these from me." Himeko did tell everyone that she wanted to find her brother and set up a new clan, but she also told them that she didn't want to be part of it. Once she helped to set up the clan, her role as the supporting cast in the clan will be done and her brother can then take over from there.

Gon still didn't want her to sell it. "But still."

Himeko decided to show Gon the other ear. "I'm only selling one of them, I'm keeping the other just in case I need them in the future. I've noticed that these actually work like ID cards, so I might need this in the future to prove that I belong to the clan."

"So, would you like you sell this earring?" The clerk asked her once again to make sure that she was indeed happy with her decision. Himeko spent a while staring at the little piece of jewellery in the appraisers hand, and despite all the big talk from a while ago, there was a slight hesitation on her face. While biting her lower lip, she tried to come up with a reasonable decision.

"Oi washboard, if you sell that, you might not be able to get it back," Killua reminded her, seeing how much she was hesitating. "If those earrings are as rare as you claim them to be, it's likely to sell before you even change your mind and come back to repurchase it. This could possibly be the last time you're seeing it."

"It's okay, please go ahead with it!" The appraiser nodded and then left to examine it, and try to calculate the value of the earring.

"Oi, you do realise that once you sell it, you won't get it back!" Leorio pointed out. "If you do, he might try to sell it to you for a higher price."

"Like I said, I'm not interested in getting it back once it's sold. Besides, I'm only selling one of them. I won't let anyone touch the other one I have."

"I still feel bad though," Gon mumbled, slightly disheartened to see the sudden turn of events. Although he did appreciate the thought his friend put into this, he couldn't help but feel like she lost something really important to her. Himeko was quite stingy despite her rich background, and to see how was going to sell something so valuable, so he could eventually find Ging.

She just shook her head, "Don't worry about it, I'm just doing this as your friend to help. You wouldn't hesitate to do something like this for me," she told him, knowing very well that Gon would have done the same thing if he was in her shoes. Gon was someone who didn't care about money, or anything materialistic for that matter, so if Gon was this desperate to get his hands on some money, she knew that this was something he truly wanted to do. "Besides, as far as I could remember, you were the first person who willingly befriended me. All these years, I felt like people approached me for their own selfish reasons. I raised to become some sort of helping hand to my brother once he became the head of the clan, and I was given impossible standards to meet. My aunts and uncles praised and flattered me knowing how much authority I'd have in the future, and my cousins just played with me for the sake of it. They let me win a lot and once I became busy with studies, they would just let me be and wouldn't approach me anymore. After the massacre, although I was able to escape the research lab, I struggled a lot in the outside world. I didn't have any money to buy myself comfort, so I had to earn it, and since I was just a child, my pay would be very low. They wouldn't even think of me as a child and work me to the bone, and because I was new to my powers back then, I would accidentally break things and ended up getting kicked out a lot." The boys listened to her in silence, not knowing what else they could say. "Man, now that I think about it, a lot has happened!" she thought out loud, before trying to laugh the foul mood away. "But the story doesn't just end there. Once I heard about the Hunter exam, I wanted to give it a shot. I always thought I was going to pass by myself, you know, as a soloist. But for some reason, I ended up befriending a boy, who approached me knowing that I didn't have anything to offer in return."

Leorio and Killua felt like that part of her story sounded familiar, and they immediately turned to the person she was talking about. Now feeling three intense eyes on him, Gon looked at all three of his friends before pointing at himself, "Me?"

"Bingo!" She smiled back at him. "After meeting Gon, I felt like I've made quite a lot of friends who genuinely look after me. It's not just Gon, Leorio, Kurapika or even Killua, but I also got the chance to meet two of my cousins from the side clan, and I got to meet Sensei, Toshi, Natsu and Haru from the dojo." She began to sheepishly rub her back in embarrassment before proceeding, "It's a little weird to admit this, but I feel like Gon is not just a friend, but also my lucky charm!"

"Thanks for including me in the list," Killua comment as soon as she finished her long winded speech, "but it was a little long and cheesy, just letting you know!"

Leorio on the other hand began to rub his eyes, "You really know how to make someone cry, Kou."

"They say the elderly are more sensitive, I guess it's true!"

"Shut it, you brat!"

"I don't know, I'm not reason you befriended everyone," Gon pointed out, "You are really open about how you feel, and you aren't afraid to tell us how you feel. The reason you have so many friends now isn't because of me, it's because you always try your best, and people appreciate how hardworking you are."

"Gon, just let her do what she wants." Killua decided to interrupt their little debate, knowing that both of them were stubborn enough to keep going for the whole day. "Her mushiness is making my nose itch."

Gon then looked at Himeko who was waiting for him to approve. This was one of the rare times she was actually agreeing with Killua, and seeing how Gon was hesitating, she nodded her head, reassuring him that she thought her decision through thoroughly. "Okay, thank you!"

Once their little debate was over, the quartet patiently waited for the employee to return. While waiting, they all decided to take a look around the store, trying to make it their mission to find the most expensive ornaments. A small game eventually escalated to a competition, and the four teens searched every corner for something that could beat the previous high score. With the high score being six million jenny bracelet, Leorio was currently in the lead. Five minutes later, the employee exited the back room and came back to the counter.

"It's worth 600 million!" He told her, carefully putting her earring down on a piece of velvety material. "You can sell both of your earrings for 1.2 billion."

"600 million?!" The surprisingly large number managed to astonish the boys, seeing how this little piece of junk was more than a Hunter license. However, as they turned to Himeko to get her approval, they saw how she still wasn't satisfied with the millions they were about to receive.

"Are you trying to play me just because I'm a kid?" She lowered her tone. "The stone itself could be worth around 500 million."

"Kid, I don't think you understand. You should let the professionals handle this."

"This pair of earrings is one of a kind, specially designed and made for our family. It's been passed down for generations and was once made by a very famous jeweller back in the days. The design is very complex, and he spent roughly five years making just this pair, searching the world for the right gemstone, metal and eventually hand carving the design. In other words, this piece you are holding right there is one of a kind and irreplaceable. You can try making a copy of it, but no matter how experience you are, you won't be able to make it as the man who made this very pair was unable to make an exact second pair himself." Being the current owner of the pair of overpriced jewellery, she knew exactly what she was talking about. Her grandmother would always scold her when she tried to take them off, reminding her how valuable the piece of jewellery really was. Her knowledge about these earrings was the sole reason for her to confidently waltz into a shop with a high risk of being scammed.

Seeing how she wouldn't change her mind, the store owner eventually gave in. Himeko knew that the pair was worth a lot more than just a mere 600 million each, and there was no way he could tell her otherwise. There were no duplicates of those earrings, and she knew that he design was impossible to replicate. She knew as much about the earrings as him; maybe even more. "You might not realise this, but although this pair is really old, it looks brand new. It's got no scratches or signs of damage on it showing that it was in good hands all this time. The jeweller who made this was talented but arrogant and he only accepted requests from the finest and richest families. I don't know how you got your hands on this, but consider yourself lucky. It even had his initials at the back to confirm that he made it." He then went to a corner of the counter to get a calculator out and estimate the real value of the single earring, while everyone else, including Himeko was anticipating its real value.

"Is that piece of junk really worth that much?" Killua asked, still not seeing the hype in them. Yes, even he did admit that those were a very beautiful set of earrings, but he just couldn't see why they were so expensive. Even 600 million jenny he considered a stretch.

Himeko nodded in response, "I'll let you in on a little secret! Try using _Gyo_ to look at the earring he's holding in his hand." The boys looked at each other, and since Leorio couldn't use _Gyo_, he decided to sit this round out. Instead, Killua and Gon both used _Gyo_ to look at the earring the store owner was holding in his hand.

"It's got an aura!" Gon exclaimed, after concentrating on the earring. Although it wasn't noticeable at first, they did manage to pick up the light orange aura surrounding the ornament.

"Yes, exactly. I never noticed until someone from the dojo pointed it out."

The store clerk soon returned while rubbing his temples. The quartet stopped talking, anticipating the real price of her earrings. "One billion." Was the only thing he could say after working out the total value..

"One billion?!"

This time around, Himeko looked completely satisfied, grinning from ear to ear. "Gon, hand me you bank details so we can transfer the money!"

"Y-yeah!" Gon stuttered, still slightly taken back by the large sum. The boys waited until Himeko filled in a couple of papers, and waited for the money to be transferred into Gon's bank account. She thanked the store owner for the good deal and once everything was sorted out, they decided to leave the store.

"I still can't believe that you were wearing one billion jenny on each ear so casually!" Leorio exclaimed, still in disbelief. "Just thinking about that sum makes me dizzy!"

"To be honest, I never knew it was worth that much either." Himeko admitted, "I guess if you were to consider how old these really are, they are actually worth more than a billion. But at least we managed to end up with a pretty good deal, don't you guys think?"

"Eh?!" Gon exclaimed in surprise, "So back then you were lying the whole time?"

"I wouldn't call it lying," she corrected him, before spending a moment to think of a much better word to describe her actions. "Acting sounds much better than lying, so let's just say that I'm a really good actress."

"Kou, are you a transmuter by any chance?"

"Yeah, why?" She asked him curiously, wondering why he was bringing _Nen_ types up all of the sudden. "How did you manage to guess?"

He looked over at Killua and back at Himeko, "No real reason, it was just a lucky guess." It wasn't exactly a lucky guess, but if he brought up how similar Himeko and Killua truly were, those two would start getting at each other's throats again. He never really thought of these two as remotely similar before, but now that he got a closer look at them, he did notice a few traits both of them shared, and neither of them were aware of it. By now, it was safe to assume that them arguing was just a way for the two to communicate in their odd, transmuter ways.

"Well, we have a good sum to start with now but we can't waste anything anymore." Killua pointed out.

"I totally forgot!" After that talk about money, Gon finally remembered something the others seemed to have forgotten. "We still have the items from the silent auction at the market."

"That's a great idea!" Leorio said, before going on to summarise everyone's tasks. "You kids go and check up on that while I go back to the hotel and get some information on the Phantom Troupe. I'll call you guys once I've got something!" Leorio once again pointed out that he wasn't needed during the silent auction, and he also remembered giving out a reward in return for information about the notorious bandits. Working in two groups would get them further than just sticking together all the time, and with that, Leorio left the three and headed back to the hotel room to gather information on the troupe's whereabouts.

"Shall we split up again and look around the market?" Gon suggested. "We got things done faster that way yesterday."

"In that case, I'll go and check the place I checked yesterday." Himeko told them.

"Hold up, we are going together today." Killua stopped her before she could leave too. "I don't trust your sense of direction, if you get lost we'll have to look everywhere for you."

"Well, we didn't bid on many items so I guess it won't take long," Gon added. "I just hope that Zepile guy didn't top our bids again." The trio set out to the market to see which items they managed to win in the auction. One by one, they went through all the items they bid on the previous day and managed to obtain four out of the five items they bid on, before making their way to an antique shop. Since the auction already printed and published the catalogue, they wouldn't accept the any more items for the auction, so the only way for them to make some money out of the items they got their hands on was the antique shop. After wandering around the city for a while, they eventually found an antique shop and stood in front of it. With no one to take initiative, the trio waited for someone to think of a plan on how to tackle this situation.

Without Leorio around, they felt a little lost in this kind of situation, and although Himeko confidently did all the talking in the jewellery store, she had no idea what their items were and how much they could be worth, so she couldn't help either. Nonetheless, Killua felt that Himeko would be more suited to talk in this kind of situation, "How about you do the talking? You are good at handling people and Gon and I will talk when it's required for us to talk."

"I'm not exactly sure how I should handle this one, but I don't mind." She spent a moment trying to sort her thoughts out, before she eventually decided to open the door and enter. "I think I know what we can do!"

"Us two will have to improvise now and then, understood?" Killua whispered over to Gon before entering the shop.

"Got it!" Gon smiled before he too followed Himeko into the antique store.

As soon as they entered, they were greeted by the appraiser standing behind the counter. "Can I help you?" He asked in a slightly surprised tone. After all, having three young children visit his store was the last thing he expected to happen that day. Himeko was the first one to lay down the canvas on the counter, and the boys then also put down the remaining items they won in the silent auction. Himeko then began telling the appraiser a story, and the appraiser listened closely, examining the antiques they brought in at the same time.

"So, you found these in your basement?" He asked, trying to absorb what Himeko had just told him.

She frantically nodded like a little child, flashing a playful smile. "My friends here came over to help us clean our basement last weekend, and we found these lying around, so we showed them to my daddy. My daddy said that these could be quite valuable items, and told us to come and hand them in to the antique store." She repeated the story once again, but in a more summarised version.

"Daddy," Killua snickered at the back, amused at the odd, babyish tone she was using to speak, before he was kicked in the shin by Himeko to get him to stop.

"That's amazing, these items can be worth quite a lot!" He told them showing of the artefacts one by one, telling them how much each of them were worth. Surprisingly, their _Gyo_ had not failed them and the items were indeed not fake. They've managed to make a profit with most of the items, however, when he came to the wooden statue he just sighed. "Unfortunately, this one isn't worth much."

"Aw, but we really thought that one might be worth something!" Her lips curved downwards, as she continued to go along with her own act. "My daddy was absolutely sure that one was valuable!" Seeing how the appraiser still wasn't convinced, she glanced over at the two boys, hoping they would give her some back up in this situation.

Killua turned to the other two, and was the first one out of the two to go with the act. "We carried it all the way here from home as well. That's a real bummer!"

Looking at their faces, the man decided to make a proposal. "How about this, if you sell me all of the items you've brought with you, I'll buy the statue off you for 80,000 Jenny as this type of wood is quite rare. Does that sound like a deal to you?"

"Really?" Gon beamed with his large, innocent puppy eyes. "You'd do that for us?"

"Yeah, it's not often that I get three cute little customers like you," he gave them a gentle smile, before he picked up the large, wooden statue. "Please give me a few minutes to get the wood authenticated." With their approval, the man was making his way to the back room with the statue in order to examine the type of wood used and to estimate its value. The trio seemed quite happy with the 80,000 jenny they were about to get as it was much better than receiving nothing after all that hard work. They backed away, watching the man walk towards the door to the back room.

"Just a minute!" As soon as he opened the back door, another man in his late twenties entered the store and interrupted the appraiser. The man with the short, light brown hair and long side burns managed to turn all eyes towards him. Gon, Killua and Himeko all examined the man carefully; he was quite sloppily dressed, wearing a red blazer over a white button up shirt that wasn't done up properly, exposing a lot of his chest. His shirt wasn't tucked into his dark grey pants, and on his feet he wore ordinary flip flops. Despite his long side burns and sloppy fashion style, his thick and wavy eyebrows stood out the most. "That man was telling the truth about the other items, but he is lying about the true value of that statue. No one will pay that much money for plain wood, he is interested in the contents of that statue!"

Gon, Killua and Himeko stared in awe as the man who just entered the room started to argue with the appraiser. He was a complete stranger, and neither did they know how he managed to overhear the appraisers proposal, but what interested them the most was his claim that the appraiser was just trying to swindle them. According to him, the statue was called a _wooden trove, _and these were quite commonly used 300 years ago to hide away treasures by the wealthy.

Gon seemed quite lost and tried to make sense of whatever the stranger was saying, but the use of these foreign words didn't help. He hoped that both of his smarter friends had a clue on what they were arguing about and hoped that they would be able to answer his question. "What's a wooden trove?" However, the two transmuters were on the same boat as Gon, and neither of them had a clue on what the man with the prominent eyebrows was talking about.

"That's surprising!" Killua remarked after seeing how not even Himeko knew the answer to Gon's question. "I thought you might know, being a rich kid and all."

"Well, there's no point in going through all the trouble of hiding treasures in a wooden statue when the whole clan is already hidden away." Seeing how she had a good point, the pair just nodded in agreement.

"You have a point!" Gon agreed with her.

After realising that the appraisers argument with the stranger still hasn't come to an end, Killua decided to intervene. "Excuse me?" He called the man, hoping he would gain his attention. "I don't mean to sound rude, but who are you?"

The man stopped and turned around to look at the trio, who were all patiently waiting for an explanation. "I just happened to walk past and saw what was going on in the store. I didn't want you kids to get scammed by this guys, so I decided to step in!"

Hearing all the commotion going on in the front store room, another much bigger man exited the back staff room after listening to the heated argument that didn't seem to stop. Whatever it was, this was his store, and he didn't want his store to be tainted with a bad reputation. He began to question the man with the side burns to prove whether the wooden trove was real or not, and even went as far as calling him a scammer, going around to fool professional appraisers and give them a bad name, before going on to list all the possible reasons on why the wooden trove was a fake. However, the other man denied all accusations against him before claiming that the trove was indeed an original. In the end, the store owner gave up, and walked back into the back room after telling his employee to give up as well. Thanks to him, the young teens discovered that the wooden trove wasn't just an original, it also still had treasures inside.

After the mystery man helped them estimate the real value for the artefacts and aided them in selling them off for a fairer price, he decided to stick around a little longer and walked the youngsters through the market. Gon was the first one to thank him, "Thank you for helping us back there mister, I'm sure we would have just sold the statue if you didn't come."

"I didn't help for free," he intervened, revealing his real intentions, "I want twenty percent of the profit once you sell the treasure."

Although Gon agreed with almost instantly, the other two were quite hesitant about his sudden invoice for the act of kindness. "Forget it!" Killua was the first to interrupt them, before giving his best friend a friendly reminder. "We need as much money as possible for the auction, remember?"

"Besides, we never asked you to help us in the first place," Himeko pointed out, "you helped us on your own accord, so we aren't obligated to pay you back."

"The least we could do is treat you for lunch," Killua added, knowing that even that was a stretch.

The man thought about it for a split second before he agreed to Killua's suggestion. He knew that lunch was the furthest they would go in terms of paying him back, so he gladly accepted their offer seeing how they were planning on having lunch anyway. "Fine, I'm okay with lunch."

At the restaurant, just as promised they treated the man to lunch, where he introduced himself. "You are Zepile?" Gon asked, after he introduced himself.

Himeko looked up at him, "So, you're the bastard that made us waste more money than we were supposed to."

Hearing her words, Zepile just let out a nervous chuckle, hoping that would lighten the tense mood a little. Wanting to break the ice, he came up with an idea. "How about we take turns asking each other questions?" He then came up with the first question to demonstrate. "Why did you want to sell those artefacts?"

"We want to participate in the auction that's going to take place in a few days, so we need money." Killua responded to his question, before asking one of his own. The group took turns asking questions about the auctions, the items they got from the market, Greed Island and some other general topics. Zepile was actually quite fascinated by the fact that these three children in front of him managed to pick out such valuable items, and decided to ask them how they managed to do that.

"We used _Gyo_!" Himeko was the one to answer this time around, however Zepile just seemed lost at the foreign terminology she was using. He stared at her, waiting for her to explain herself, but all she did was quietly sip on her orange juice.

"It's an advanced _Nen_ technique where you focus your aura in your eyes," Gon tried to explain Himeko's answer to the best of his abilities, but Zepile was still quite confused now that there were more unfamiliar terms being used.

Killua tried to break Gon's answer down further, "In other words, you basically just stare really hard at something!"

"Okay, I've got one last question," Zepile began. "Would you like my help with anything?" The three youngsters gave each other a confused look, before Killua asked why he wanted to help them. Zepile then answered, "This vase here was made by me and is a counterfeit, but the fact that you actually picked this piece of trash up made me happy."

Gon stood up and objected, "It's not a piece of trash!" He declared firmly, "The fact that it contains your aura in it means that you spent a lot of time and effort into making it, so please don't call it trash!" Zepile found himself drawn to Gon; he didn't judge him for making a counterfeit of a vase and selling it off for money, instead he praised his talent.

"Fine, you can help us." Himeko gave him another approval. "None of us actually know much about the auction itself, so it would be better to have an expert helping us."

After eating and paying the bill, they left the restaurant and followed Zepile who was willing to show them something. "There is one technique that can still fool professionals, although it's quite a simple trick that even a child could think of," he told. "Instead of having just one opening, you can make multiple openings in other places where professionals wouldn't think of looking, so if we take the wooden trove as an example, instead of melting the glue with heat or opening it right at the top where professionals would normally look, you could make a small incision near the bottom, replace the treasures with fakes and seal it back up again. This technique is fairly new, so not many think of it although it's child's play."

Gon was the most interested out of the three and asked Zepile to teach him more about the techniques, and Zepile was interested in Gon's personality and his willingness to learn more. As an appraiser, he himself has learned to appraise humans as well as antiques, although it was a lot harder to appraise antiques. In his opinion, Gon was the type that was the hardest to analyse compared to his two friends. Gon was always seen smiling, so it was pretty hard to tell what he was really thinking. In contrast to him, both Killua and Himeko walked around with a straight face just like majority of human beings, so it wasn't as hard to see through them as it was with Gon. Although he looked very innocent, this itself could make Gon a lot more dangerous than he looked.

Himeko's phone rang while Zepile was still talking about the appraisal techniques with Gon, but Gon's attention turned to her as she announced the caller. Gon and Killua both rushed to her side to listen in to the conversation before she picked up. "What's up Leorio?"

"I've got hold of the whereabouts of the Spiders, and I'm heading there right now!"

"Really? Their hideout?"

"No, two of them were spotted out in town taking a walk. I'll send you the address right now!"

"Okay, we'll be there."

"Before I hang up, just let Killua handle the directions. I can't trust you or Gon with it."

"Don't worry, I'll bring them there safe and sound!" Killua reassured before the call cut.

Zepile was surprised to see the three kids in such a hurry, "What about the auction?"

"We'll let you handle it, you're the expert after all!" Gon entrusted him with everything that had to do with the auction.

"Okay, then leave it to me!"

After parting ways with Zepile, the three headed towards the address that Leorio had just sent over to their phones to meet him. Thus, they prepared to chase the spiders back to their nests.

* * *

**A/n -** Long chapter! Sorry if it was mostly dialogue.


	25. Pursuit

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 24**

_Pursuit_

...

Gon, Killua and Himeko set out to meet Leorio at a chic cafe in the heart of city. Once the trio arrived, they joined Leorio who was already seated on the second floor by the window, looking out at the dozens of couples, and there were two who casually fit in with the rest. The waitress took their order and soon returned with a cafe latte for Leorio, and three juices for the youngin's. While they were keeping an eye on the oddly normal looking couple Leorio had pointed out, he proceeded to pass along the leaflet with the pictures of seven Phantom Troupe members. Amongst those was a young girl, not older than her mid-twenties with long, light pink hair, and another was a much older looking man, probably in his early thirties with long, black hair tied up at the top. The same pair was sitting not too far away from the quartet, wearing a much slouchier and casual attire. The information was passed onto them by another couple who were sitting dangerously close to the troupe members, and Leorio texted them to provide them with a picture to confirm that those two were indeed the same people as from the wanted posters.

A while later, he got a text back with an up close picture of the two, who looked like any other couple out of a date. Leorio then passed his phone around, wanting to get confirmation from the others. Upon closer inspection, they could all come up to an agreement that they were indeed the criminals they were after. Once it was confirmed, Leorio transferred the promised reward to their information brokers, and the couple left the place as soon as possible, not wanting to get into any trouble.

Gon, Leorio and Himeko were eyeing both Machi and Nobunaga, trying to read into any suspicious movements. Killua on the other hand had other things he was thinking about. "Why would they be out in the open like this? It just doesn't make any sense!" He began chewing on his green straw, hoping to vent his frustration. Two wanted criminals being out in plain sight didn't make much sense to him. After the big stunt they pulled a couple of nights ago, they must know that the whole city was on the hunt for them, yet they didn't look worried at all. To him it was just suspicious; he hadn't got a clue on what their motives were.

"I have an explanation!" Leorio exclaimed, making Killua's attention turn to him immediately. He put down his white coffee mug, before crossing his arms in confidence, "There could only be one reason."

Himeko nodded, agreeing with Leorio. "Yeah, I thought of one possible explanation too!"

Now that she was also aware of the spiders' motives, even Gon started to grow curious. "Go on, spit it out already!" Killua yelled impatiently, wanting to put together all the puzzle pieces to this mystery.

"They are on a date!" Leorio and Himeko deduced insync.

Gon seemed to have believed the ridiculous conclusion the two of them came up with, "Woah!" He awed, before immediately looking out of the window to check what this so-called couple was up to.

Killua stood up and hit the table out of frustration, "That's not it!" he yelled, wanting the two class clowns to snap out of it and be more serious, "Concentrate you two!"

"But now that we have found them, can't we just capture them and force them to tell us their hideout?" Himeko questioned, after looking at the two Phantom Troupe members who looked unarmed. They obviously had the upper hand; it was four vs. two right now.

"It's not that easy!" Killua sighed, dropping back down onto his white, wooden chair. He realised how much more he was stressing out compared to his three friends, so he first tried to calm himself down. After seeing the Phantom Troupe members in person, he couldn't help but remember one of the stories his father once told him. Just thinking about it made him so much more anxious, and to stop his friends from doing something reckless such as going after them without knowing their true strength, he decided to tell them his father's story. A few years ago, Silva received a request from someone to hunt down the Phantom Troupe. The reward seemed quite high for what he believed were petty thieves at first, but after fighting only one member and defeating their former #8, he told his family to stay away from the infamous bandits. _'They weren't worth the money,' _he remembered his father complaining on the tough mission, and in Killua's opinion, this was the greatest compliment one of the Zoldyck's targets could get. Unlike the other three, Killua was well aware of how strong they were. If even his father, the head of the Zoldycks had a hard time beating one, then they must be a strong target. They couldn't afford to blindly underestimate them based on just looks.

After he told them the story, he looked up and saw everyone else's faces. They still didn't completely understand the true capabilities of the two members sitting amongst the crowd, so Killua decided to assist them with it. "Just imagine two Hisoka's sitting there. Act natural!" Killua proceeded to take a sip from his drink, but when he opened his eyes again, the trio imagined two Hisoka's sitting opposite each other, and having a chat over a cup of coffee. Their expressions fell immediately and they started to act very awkward and unnatural, not knowing how to handle the situation anymore. They took Killua's advice to act natural, but all they could do is force out an awkward smile and some nervous chuckles. "Stop acting so suspicious!"

At the table outside, the two Phantom Troupe members Machi and Nobunaga casually had a chat over a cup of coffee. The weather was pleasant, and there were quite a lot of couples sitting around them, making it much easier for them to blend in. However, the pair wasn't on a date; instead, they were looking out for anyone, and anything suspicious.

"Do you think someone's watching us?" Machi asked, discretely scanning the area now and then.

"Probably," Nobunaga replied, looking up at the clear sky. To him the answer was pretty obvious, so he didn't even have to bother looking around like his comrade. Their pictures were on wanted posters all over town, and with two billion jenny on each of their heads, the whole city was looking for them. Not too long ago he even noticed a young couple sitting a few tables away from them, and going as far as staring at them. He managed to take note of their suspicious behaviour, but as they weren't a threat to them, he chose to do nothing.

"Do you think it's the chain user?"

"The possibility is quite high."

"What do you think the boss wants to do with him?" She asked out of curiosity. Their boss Chrollo was rarely interested in people, so his sudden fascination with the chain user surprised her. "Do you think he wants to recruit him?" Although it was just a harmless question she asked, the tension between Nobunaga and Machi grew all of the sudden.

"The boss wanted him dead or alive, Machi." He pointed out, in a slightly warning tone, not wanting her to come to the same assumption again. The two weren't exactly sure what might have happened to their fellow teammate Uvogin, but they knew that he was heading out for the chain user when he was last seem. Whether he managed to capture Uvogin again, or might have killed him in the worst case scenario, they didn't know. All they were after was finding the chain user who would have the answers to their questions, and Nobunaga was set on finding him dead or alive. The pair had a heated debate on whether to take the chain user down, or whether to take him to their hideout alive. Nobunaga wasn't so set on leaving him alive, he out of everyone wanted him dead for whatever he could have possibly done to his dear comrade.

"Oi, can you feel that?" Leorio asked, feeling the tension that could be cut with a knife between the two Phantom Troupe members who got into a heated argument. Till now, they were able to camouflage into the crowd quite well, but that dangerous aura that was oozing out of them all of the sudden made them stick out like a sore thumb. "Did they perhaps notice us? I mean, I can't even use _Zetsu_ yet."

"No, they didn't!" Killua stated fully confident. "Using _Zetsu_ would just make us more suspicious and attract more attention. They aren't trying to sense _Nen_, but instead they are just looking out for anyone and anything suspicious."

"Why would they do something like that though?" Himeko asked. "I mean, what would they gain by doing that?"

"I don't know either. They might be looking for someone specific, but I'm not exactly sure about that."

"They look like they are arguing with each other!" Gon pointed out, while continuously observing their actions. It wasn't too obvious as the pair was trying to keep calm, but judging by their expressions and the tension between them, he drew to this conclusion.

"Scary! Remind me to never get into an argument with them!" Himeko shuddered at the thought of possibly getting into an argument with them.

"Let's settle this without violence," Nobunaga suggested, before pulling out a gold coin from his pocket. After flipping the coin, the two agreed on the terms. If Nobunaga won, they would take the chain user down, but if Machi won, they would lure him back to their hideout. Once they came to an agreement, Nobunaga decided to reveal the results of the coin flipping.

"Heads, I win!" Machi stated, before being the first one to stand up.

"Tsk," Nobunaga clicked his tongue out of annoyance, before putting the personalised coin back in his pocket. He too stood up after taking one last sip from his coffee, and the pair slowly started to leave, wanting to lure out whoever was watching them.

"They are moving!" Leorio announced as the Phantom Troupe members were on the move again. "We have to come up with something quickly!"

"We can't lose this opportunity after we finally found two of them," Gon pointed out. "We have to follow them."

They all turned to Killua to hear his opinion. Being the most experienced in these hide and seek games, he was the most reliable person to turn to in this situation. "_Zetsu, _we will follow them using _Zetsu_!" He proposed a plan. "I'm confident in Gon's and my own skills since we trained together, but I'm not sure about you two. Only come with us if you are confident with your _Zetsu_!" It was a warning, and Killua was dead serious. If just one of them were to get caught, the rest of them would also be in trouble.

"That rules me out then," Leorio stated, "I don't know how to use _Zetsu_."

"In that case, you can contact Zepile who is going to help us with the auction."

"Okay, give me his details." Gon took out his new cell phone and scrolled down the list of numbers he manage to save on it. Once he found Zepile's number, he dictated it while Leorio dialed and saved the number in his own phone.

While Gon continued filling Leorio in on Zepile and his job, Killua then turned to Himeko who was the only person left without a role. "That just leaves you!" he informed her, "Are you confident enough to come with us, or are you going with Leorio?" It was a hard question for her to answer. After knowing the real strength of the two Phantom Troupe members, she found it hard to find the will to go with Gon and Killua. If the two members are really going to their hideout, there is a possibility of meeting the other eleven members who were all as strong as Hisoka, maybe even stronger. If Killua left out that vital detail of how strong they really were, she would have immediately agreed, but now she had to think about it carefully. If she messed up with her _Zetsu_, the two boys would be found out too. But if this ended up being a success, not only would it help Gon, but they would also find valuable information to pass on to Kurapika who was after them.

Himeko started using _Zetsu_ all of the sudden, which turned the attention of Gon, Leorio and Killua towards her. "I'm coming with you, I'm not going to back out after coming this far."

"Good!" Killua smiled seeing how determined she really was about this mission. She seemed extremely confident in her _Zetsu_ skills, but he still couldn't help but worry over Gon and her. They were about to follow professional _Nen_ users, and neither of the two actually had any experience in trailing. He knew the two were quite talented and skilled, but Killua still thought of Gon and even Himeko as simple-minded and naive when it came to fighting. Coming face to face with such people was never something Gon would have expected, and though Himeko wanted to track her clan's murderers down, she didn't have a clue on how to deal with experienced fighters either.

Now that the plan was confirmed, Killua and Gon followed and also activated their Zetsu, while Leorio just watched them in awe. _"It's as if they completely vanished in front of me, but they are still here."_ He thought as he looked at the trio who were still right in front of them, but he couldn't sense their presence at all.

"Leorio, did you bring my katana?" Himeko asked, interrupting the elder's thoughts. He took a moment to snap out of it, before frantically looking around his seat for the item she had requested for him to bring.

"Yeah, here!" He handed her the sword he got from their hotel room. Himeko wasn't fond of carrying such a large and eye-catching katana around, especially since it attracted quite a lot of attention towards her. After bringing it from Kioto, it was on standby in the hotel and she had previously told Leorio to bring it back if he were to find any clues on the Spider's whereabouts. Once she finished checking thethe katana's condition, she tied the dark blue sash to hold it in place, so the blade was now on her back.

"That looks so cool on you!" Gon exclaimed in excitement, seeing Himeko secure the sash. "Can you teach me how to use it?" Although Himeko wasn't as excited as him, she did remember having a similar reaction when she first began learning sword fighting from Natsume.

Himeko looked up at the excited boy. "Yeah, sure! Once we are done I'll teach you!"

Compared to Gon, Killua wasn't exactly impressed, "Is that really necessary? It might slow you down." Their mission to follow both Nobunaga and Machi to wherever they were heading required absolute concentration, and nothing could distract them. The fact that she had to carry such a large sword around on her back worried him. Killua saw her katana as more of a hindrance than an aid.

"Don't worry, I'm used to carrying it around so it won't get in the way." She reassured him, having travelled with her katana before. One of Natsume's favourite ways to teach her was to take her out on the mountains and play a game. Their aim throughout the game was to hide out in the forest and try to take the other person out. Although she did enjoy his more interactive way of teaching, Natsume did tend to take things too seriously sometimes. Whatever it was, there were quite a few instances where they played the so called game with weapons.

With that all settled, they headed out of the cafe, ready to part ways. However, before they headed after Machi and Nobunaga, Killua gave Gon and Himeko a set of instructions he needed them to follow at all costs. If they were spotted at any point during the mission, they had to abandon the chase and leave immediately. If they couldn't continue the pursuit for whatever reason, they would give up, and there were no if's or but's for this condition. If Killua gave them a signal using his phone by ringing them once, they would abandon the plan. Gon and Himeko were only advised to pick up his phone call if he rang more than twice. If Machi and Nobunaga were to split up at some point, all of them would follow Machi.

"Before we go, have you two ever trailed anyone before?" Killua asked curiously. As of now, he was the self-proclaimed leader of this mission being the person with the most experience. However, although he highly doubted the possibility of the two having trailed someone in the past, he still felt the need to ask them just in case.

"Nope, I pretty much sucked at hide and seek when I was younger." Himeko told them, shaking her head. He somewhat expected an answer like this from her. Being someone who hasn't been out of her house until four years ago, he doubted that she would have actually had a chance to follow someone. Moreover, she only learnt _Zetsu_ a couple of months ago, and her footsteps weren't as quiet as they should be. If she did trail someone before, she would have only trailed an amateur; someone who wasn't comparable to the Phantom Troupe members.

Killua then looked forward to Gon's response, honestly not expecting much from him either. "I've only followed Hisoka for three days during the exam," Gon beamed proudly, leaving his friends speechless. Being able to trail any random stranger unnoticed was one thing, but being able to be on Hisoka's case for three whole days was another.

"What?!" Himeko and Leorio exclaimed at the same time.

"He didn't notice you?" Leorio questioned, not being able to believe his own ears.

"No, I actually managed to surprise him," Gon smiled confidently, remembering the time back on Zevil Island. Although he made it sound like it was nothing, he did spend three whole days putting a lot of thought into how to go about trailing the dangerous fellow. "He even complimented me too."

"Wow, that's impressive Gon!"

"That was before you learnt Zetsu too!" Himeko added, "You are a natural, Gon!"

Seeing his best friend's head in the clouds, Killua slowly walked towards the grinning Gon, used his fist to hit him on the head in order to bring him back on planet earth, before walking back to where he was originally standing. "Ouch, what was that for?" Gon yelled, trying to soothe the pain by massaging his scalp.

"Just, I had this sudden urge to hit you."

"That hurt though!"

"Okay you three, we should split up now before we lose sight of those two." Leorio interrupted the argument that was going to break out between the two boys, reminding them of the main mission here. With Gon, Himeko and Killua set to leave, he told the three to be very careful on their quest and abandon the mission if there were any complications. Once Leorio left to meet up with Zepile, the trio decided to split up and head out to follow Machi and Nobunaga who already left the cafe.

"Green boar to blue typhoon and silver spark. Frommy end, it seems like they haven't noticed us yet, over!"

"Blue typhoon to green boar and silver spark. Nothing suspicious is happening from my end either, over."

"Stop fooling around you two and keep on guard!" Killua decided to take the lead as planned, while Gon and Himeko were close behind him. He trusted his own instincts the most, so when they split up he decided to remain closest to their target, knowing that he'd be able to sense danger from miles away and alert the other two. The trio followed them from three different directions, and from all of their point of views, nothing seemed particularly out of the ordinary, and neither of the two Phantom Troupe members seemed to act strange.

Himeko watched them from a tall building as they kept walking down the pathway. Neither Machi nor Nobunaga's eyes averted away from the path ahead, making her wonder whether they haven't been spotted yet. No matter how much she practiced over the past couple of months, she was careful not to let herself slip and reveal her presence, knowing it would end up bad not just for her, but also for Gon and Killua, and maybe even Leorio who was waiting for them back at the hotel. There was no signal from Killua, and knowing how experienced he was with these kind of things, she trusted his instincts over her own. Once the pair was far enough, she continued to trail them by jumping from one building to the next. "Have they noticed us yet, Killua?"

"They haven't, I don't think they have."

"So, should we keep following them?" Gon asked for his confirmation.

"Yes, let's do that for now. Just be careful you two!" Compared to Gon and Himeko, Killua was already drenched in cold sweat, and it hadn't even been that long yet. He was tense, one wrong move and it could be all over for them, so he didn't want to blow the chance. He was the most experienced out of the three, and he was also the only one who could thoroughly analyse their targets. These kind of hide and seek game he had been playing since he was only six years old, but never has he followed a target this powerful.

Meanwhile, compared to the tense trio following them, the two Phantom Troupe members were pretty composed. "Do you think someone is following us?" Machi asked, as she calmly continued walking.

"Probably," Nobunaga answered in the same, composed tone as his colleague. "Whoever it is, they are good. I can't sense their presence, but there are definitely more than just one person."

"Do you think it is the chain user?"

"We can't be too sure. We can assume that the chain user likes to work alone, but there is definitely more than just one person following us."

"I have a feeling that they have a connection with the chain user. My instincts tell me."

"Your instincts are usually right, so I'll trust them for now." There was something about these two; they were just too carefree, although they knew they were being followed. This was one of Killua's deepest fears at that moment, something he couldn't read off by their body language. They acted almost too dumb to be true, and for him it was difficult to determine whether their targets were fully aware of them being followed. On the one hand, these were two experts; even his father approved of their skills, so it seemed almost too illogical to assume that they were completely clueless about being followed. However, these two were completely absorbed into showing no signs of awareness; they wanted the trio to blindly follow them into their trap.

_"Why aren't they showing any signs?"_ Killua was stressed out to the point where he wanted to pull out his own hair. He had been watching Machi and Nobunaga for the past half an hour, not leaving his eyes from them even once, but they were showing no signs of them knowing they were trailed. Killua was confident in his skills, he was able to notice a skip in heartbeat, but the fact that Machi and Nobunaga were so calm made him anxious. Soon, Killua started to notice that they were beginning to stray from the busier streets, going into the more empty alleys of Yorkshin. They were at the outskirts of town, heading towards a set of deserted buildings. _"Do I follow them or not?"_ Killua gripped his phone tightly, observing the cool troupe members. Was this going to be a trap, or was it not? He decided to trust his observation skills, and since there weren't any behavioural changes, he decided to keep following.

Himeko started to notice that the alleyways they walked down became more and more deserted, and she saw the pair walk towards a deserted set of buildings. She started to wonder whether this was going to be a trap or not and looked at her phone._ "Is he going to give us a ring yet?" _Killua's first condition; abandon the mission if it became too risky to continue. Killua hadn't contacted them yet, however seeing how the events were starting to unfold, she wasn't comfortable following the enemy anymore. She had more faith in Killua's skills when it came to these things than her own, but there was this little gut feeling that told her to stop right there, turn around and go back. Gon trusted Killua a lot, and he'd be prepared to go in with no second thoughts if Killua insisted.

After seeing that her phone still hadn't rang, she looked around the area. She had no clue where the boys could be, but nonetheless, she entered one of the buildings and carefully hid in one of the rooms on the third floor. Machi and Nobunaga were standing right in the centre of the abandon buildings, and Himeko kept her eyes on them. Gon and Killua must have been quite close by too, probably hiding in one of the other buildings, or maybe even the same building she was in.

"They aren't taking the bait," Machi pointed out impatiently. "Do you think they've realised this is a trap?"

"They've followed us all the way here, so they won't resist attacking."

"So, we have to wait?"

"Yes, we'll just wait for a bit." Following their short conversation, the pair remained motionless, waiting for whoever was hiding to just come out and show themselves. Suddenly, Nobunaga's phone started to ring. In that situation, the sudden call surprised them, but he still decided to pick up after looking at the caller ID.

Gon was on standby in one of the three buildings surrounding the Phantom Troupe members. He had no idea of where Himeko or Killua might be, but he had complete trust in Killua which was why he didn't hesitate to keep following the pair. Looking out of the window, he kept a close watch on the troupe's every move. Suddenly, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. After leaving it to vibrate once, he felt it vibrate once more, and that was the sign for him to finally pick up. "Killua!"

"Gon, Kou, don't move from your places. Keep watching them and if there is one odd movement, make a run for it!"

"Do you two think that they might be trying to lure us out?" Himeko proposed the theory she had been keeping in the back of her mind all this time now.

"I can't tell, but if you do see one strange movement, then get out of here immediately."

"Okay, I got you!" Gon put down his phone and proceeded to look out for any odd movements Killua talked about. Nobunaga was still talking on the phone when suddenly, he looked up and over in Killua's direction. This was the sign Killua had been telling them about all this time, the sign to abandon the mission and run as far as they could.

Gon ran towards the exit, but his path was blocked by the tall, slender Pakunoda. He backed away, trying to make an escape through the window, but it was no use. Machi made her way into the room through the window and blocked the way out. He didn't even move an inch and was caught by Machi, who grabbed his arms and tied them behind his back, making him unable to move. The two women who had now surrounded him were going to start their interrogation, "Who is the chain user, and what is your relationship with him?" Machi began asking.

"I don't know!" Gon yelled, as he struggled out of Machi's grip. Machi looked over at Pakunoda who moved towards Gon and put her hand on his head. Gon was slightly taken back by the sudden contact, however, Pakunoda wasn't trying to hurt him. After some time, she let go before shaking her head.

Over in Killua's room, he escaped as soon as he saw Nobunaga look over in his direction, but just like over in Gon's room, he was greeted by an unexpected guest by the door. It was another one of the Phantom Troupe members, Phinks. Killua used his speed to bounce around the room, trying to confuse Phinks, but Phinks managed to catch him by his leg with ease. Killua then grabbed a few rocks and threw them at him, and while he was distracted by them and dodged them, he used his other leg to kick him, but once again, Phinks was able to grab Killua's second leg with ease.

Killua pierced his fingers into the ground, and spun around trying to release himself from Phinks' grip. He managed to back away, but was greeted by Nobunaga who climbed out of the window. That was when Killua finally realised; they weren't the ones stalking, but the ones being stalked. With that, the men started to interrogate him too, leaving him no choice but to answer. He had to eventually surrender for the sake of Gon and Himeko.

After seeing Nobunaga's eyes avert to one of the three buildings, Himeko concluded that this was finally the right time to abort the mission. As she headed towards the door to escape, she too was greeted by an unexpected guest. "Hi!" Shalnark waved at her, with a wide smile plastered on his face.

She slowly backed away one step at a time towards the window, but was stopped by a man who suddenly popped up from behind Shalnark, and moved towards the window in a flash, blocking it in an instant. It was Feitan, and he was too fast for her to see, all she could see was a flash moving past her. Seeing how she was surrounded on either side, Himeko firmly stood in her place, before she reached for her katana, ready to strike.

"If you draw your sword, I'd have to draw mines!" Feitan warned in a low, growling tone. At the sound of his voice, she stopped her hands in midair, slowly removing them from her katana and raising them in the air to show that she wasn't going to try anything funny.

"Do you know a conjurer or manipulator that uses chains to fight?" Shalnark began to question her too now.

"Chains?" Himeko questioned, but before Shalnark could answer, he received a phone call. Seeing the preoccupied man, she wanted to try and use this opportunity to escape, but stopped when she received another warning.

"I'll cut you!" Feitan's low growl made her freeze again. These weren't the kind of people who just made an empty threat, and she would get killed by the shorter man behind her if she disobeyed. In the end, Himeko could only wait for Shalnark to finish his phone call.

"Your friends surrendered," he informed her, once he was done conversing with Nobunaga. He put away his phone, before leading the way out. "You are coming with us." With Feitan behind her, all she could do was obey and follow the blonde man out of the run down building. Once they were out, both Feitan and Shalnark met up with the others, and although Himeko initially found it hard to believe that both Killua and Gon were also captured and surrendered, after seeing the two in the same situation as her she couldn't deny it any longer. Unfortunately, all three of them were now in this mess together, and not even one of them managed to escape. Following Nobunaga's orders, the trio obediently got into the car and headed towards their hideout. Whilst in the car, Pakunoda continued to ask them a couple of questions about the chain user, but the trio did not know of their mystery man, so they could not answer.

Eventually, the cars reached the Phantom Troupe's hideout, and the youngsters were led inside, where they met the rest of the troupe who were already waiting for them. Gon, Killua and Himeko all took a good look at all the faces, but one familiar face stood out the most. _"Don't react!"_ Hisoka prayed quietly, hoping that the three were old enough to think for themselves. Killua was the first one to notice Hisoka sitting there, and just kept walking, pretending not to know him. Himeko was the second one to spot the creepy fellow, staring back at her with a straight face. Although she was a little more surprised to see such a familiar face, and though it raised many questions to why Hisoka was there, whether he was a member of the bandits and why he told Kurapika about the Phantom Troupe in the first place, she ignored the thoughts for now and just walked past.

Gon was the third person to walk in and scan the crowd, "Oh!" He exclaimed as soon as he spotted the familiar face. Hisoka tried to keep his straight face, while Killua and Himeko suddenly stopped walking at the sound of their friend's voice, before all three mentally face-palmed.

* * *

**A/n-** Hi, lol.


	26. Spider's Nest

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 25**

_Spider's Nest_

_..._

"Oh!" Gon exclaimed as soon as he spotted a familiar face amongst the rest of the Spiders. Killua and Himeko immediately stopped walking and froze, realising that Gon had noticed Hisoka. In response, Hisoka kept his head down, trying not to draw to much attention from his fellow Phantom Troupe members. Seeing how tense Killua and Himeko were all of the sudden, and after noticing how Gon suddenly wanted to swallow his words, Nobunaga who walked right behind him grew curious.

"Is something wrong?" He questioned him, trying to keep a close eye on Gon's facial expression. Gon didn't look like a good liar to begin with, but he couldn't be too sure either. He was already suspicious of Hisoka, knowing that he was nothing but trouble, but it was Chrollo's decision to keep him in the group although majority disliked the red haired fellow. However, that didn't stop him from wanting to find out what Hisoka's real intentions were for joining the troupe was. "Do you recognise anyone from here?"

"No," Gon shook his head in response, realising that Hisoka probably had his reason's for being there, and that it would be really bad for both parties if Nobunaga found out that they knew Hisoka. "I think I mistook one of them for someone else."

Himeko looked up and suddenly pointed at Shizuku sitting amongst the crowd, trying to avert attention from Hisoka. "That's strange, I think Gon is right. I've seen _that_ girl before as well." It was definitely the same girl who arm wrestled Gon a few nights ago, and she was sure that Shizuku too would remember Gon if only she looked a little closer.

"Oh!" Killua exclaimed loudly after looking at her face. "It's the girl from our conditional auction!"

Himeko turned to face him, before agreeing with him with a nod, "So, you remember her too? Gon sure had a hard time beating her."

The fact that these two had the guts to point out one particular member of their troupe did make their act somewhat believable. The place, time and occasion they saw Shizuku at was consistent, and it was impossible to find a lie in their statement. Somehow, everyone's attention, including the suspicious Nobunaga's turned to their fellow member Shizuku, making both Gon and Hisoka let out a quiet sigh in relief. All they had to do now was confirm their statement by the petite woman wearing the large, black framed glasses.

"Is what they are saying true?" Franklin was the first person to question her, and she began to think about what the children said before denying it. She couldn't seem to recall anything and cluelessly shook her head in response.

"I remember Shizuku losing to this kid a few days ago." Although Shizuku had already denied it, Feitan felt the need to interrupt her and point out that she did indeed interact with Gon a few nights back. Just like many others, Shizuku was drawn to the diamond ring and couldn't resist wanting to try the conditional auction out, and Feitan remembered watching her from a safe distance.

"Eh, don't lie!" Hearing this from her comrade, Shizuku immediately got defensive, not wanting to believe that a thirteen year old rookie managed to beat her. "I wouldn't lose to a kid, there is no way that happened!"

"You lost because you used your right hand," he explained, hoping it would trigger some of her lost memories.

"Why would I do that? I'm left handed." The Troupe eventually gave up trying to get information out of her. According to Franklin, once she forgets something, it will be forever forgotten no matter how hard they try to make her remember. The fact that Feitan remembered her arm wrestling Gon was enough information for the group. With that, Feitan unintentionally saved not just the trio, but also Hisoka from any complication that would have occurred if the troupe found out that they knew each other.

However, Nobunaga couldn't help but grow curious hear that. Shizuku was a strong addition to their group, and she was an experienced fighter hand picked by their leader Chrollo. The whole group acknowledged her abilities, so it didn't really matter whether or not she used her right or left hand, the fact that someone outside the group, especially a young boy was able to beat Shizuko surprised him quite a bit. "Hey Machi, what's my ranking in the group for arm wrestling?"

"You are not the best, but you are not the worst either." Nobunaga's physical strength was pretty average amongst the other members, he wasn't the best, but he wasn't the worst either. To be fair, he was significantly stronger than Shizuku, but individuals like Franklin and Uvogin were much stronger, with Uvogin being the physically strongest in the whole group.

"Kid, let's have a match!" Gon and Nobunaga sat in the centre of the abandoned warehouse, which was the Phantom Troupe's current hideout, and Nobunaga demanded Gon to arm wrestle him over and over again. Each time, he would slam Gon's backhand against the wooden crate they were arm wrestling on, and at this point, Gon's hand was badly bruised with open cuts caused by the wood splinters. His fellow members watched their comrade beat the little boy over and over again with no mercy, as if they were just playing a silly little game.

Himeko and Killua on the other hand struggled to remain as calm. Knowing how strong Gon really was, Killua stood back and watched, but was ready to head in if things got more serious, but Himeko couldn't stand still. On one hand, she knew there were some Phantom Troupe members watching the two, so if she interfered with Nobunaga's little game, it would be game over for all three of them. But seeing Gon struggle against his opponent, and the crimson blood flowing down his hand made her furious, yet she was too afraid to jump in between them.

"My comrade, he went out to fight the chain user last night," Nobunaga began to tell Gon, before starting another round. "He might be a bit reckless at times, and he always complained about punctuality although he doesn't look like the punctual type, but he was one of us. I swear I will find that chain bastard and kill him for what he has done to Uvo."

Nobunaga began to shed tears for his fallen comrade, and the other members were mourning for him. Out of the trio, Gon and Himeko were the most surprised, but all of them had mixed feelings about it. Killua didn't feel much sympathy for them despite having lost their comrade. It was karma; what goes around would eventually find its way back. Having turned so many people against them with their past actions, they should have expected to feel the taste of their own medicine sooner or later. Himeko's expression softened after seeing him mourn. She knew it was karma, but nonetheless, they've lost someone they've held dear to them. It surprised her at first, seeing that even cold hearted monsters like them could feel human emotions and cry. They seemed like any ordinary person mourning for their lost friend, something even she would do if she were to lose one of heir own friends. But then again, it disgusted her when she began comparing Nobunaga to herself.

Gon too had a series of different emotions about what was going on around him. Sure, deep down his heart couldn't help but feel bad for them to have lost their friend, but majority of his heart felt no sympathy for these people. These people have ruthlessly killed so many innocent civilians, and the fact that they were mourning for their own dead comrade made his insides boil in anger. He regarded it plain selfish, especially when there were people like Kurapika and Himeko in this world who were struggling wit the loss of their own families who were killed for pleasure and self-centred intentions.

Nonetheless, the trio were left with no choice than to listen to the middle-aged samurai swearing vengeance for his friend's death, "I don't know who he is, or whether he bears a personal grudge towards us, but I swear, I will find him and send him to hell to keep Uvo company."

_"At least the knows there are people out there with grudges against them, wanting to kill them." _Himeko thought, but that was when it finally hit her. _Personal grudge, mafia_ these words started ringing bells in her head,_ "The chain user! He couldn't be..." _It was just an assumption she made based on a very vague description of this so called chain user, so she didn't want to jump to conclusions yet. There were probably hundreds of individuals out there joining the mafia because of a personal grudge against the Phantom Troupe after all. As everyone else was too caught in Nobunaga's story, Himeko glanced over at Killua, who wasn't standing too far away from her. He looked back at her with the same expression on his face; however, he looked a lot more confident with the points he connected together, while Himeko still had her doubts. _"If Killua thinks so too, then I'm not over thinking this after all,"_ she proceeded to look back up at Gon,_ "I doubt he got the hint yet, but it might be better this way."_

Just as she predicted, Gon was too busy to piece all the puzzle pieces together. Nobunaga's little rant got his blood boiling until he wasn't able to contain all those emotions anymore. Using his _Nen,_ Gon flipped Nobunaga's dominating hand over, breaking the wooden crate they were arm wresting on into pieces. Nobunaga and the rest of the troupe weren't the only ones surprised, Himeko and Killua didn't expect this sudden outburst either. Gon hardly ever got angry, neither did he like to express his frustration in such a manner. "You kill countless of innocent people, yet you mourn when your own comrade dies?" Nobunaga's hypocrisy made him sick, and he felt the need to call him out, regardless of his current situation. "What about everyone else who has suffered a loss, don't they have feelings too? Even if I knew who this chain user was, I would never tell you!"

The Spiders were surprised to see Gon standing up for himself, but not everyone was too happy with his sudden outburst. In an instant, Feitan came forth, pushing the younger boy down and keeping him down by force. Himeko and Killua who were about to rush out to help Gon were stopped by Hisoka, who held one of his signature joker cards by their necks.

"You, girl on the left. Get your hand away from your sword and put them in the air!" Himeko obeyed his words, slowly raising both her arms in the air just like instructed. Hisoka was dead serious this time around, and compared to when they first entered the warehouse, it didn't look like he was on their side anymore. More than Himeko, it was Killua who was surprised to see him acting this way. Hisoka's attraction to Gon was no secret, and there were numerous occasions where Hisoka had helped Gon in order to become stronger. This time was different, his aura was oozing with bloodlust, something Killua could just smell in the air.

In this condition, Hisoka wouldn't hesitate to kill the two just to relieve himself from his bloodlust. Killua knew this too well, and in this situation his experience and over analytical mind has become his burden. Hisoka's immense presence behind him was enough to force him into submission, before his brother's words ran through his mind. "_Don't fight anyone stronger than you. Run, run away from them." _Illumi'smonotonous voice caused the hairs on his arms to stand up, and all he could do was stand still and obediently listen to the voice in his head.

Himeko couldn't do much either. After glancing at Killua one more time, she realised that he wasn't going to jump in any time soon, so she figured it was safer to do the same. Her nose wasn't as sharp as his when it came to smelling danger, but she knew how unpredictable Hisoka could be. He wasn't the only one, Feitan who was dangerously close to breaking Gon's arm also screamed danger. There were a few members whom she classed as more reserved, for example all three of the women. However, she had to remember that all of them were possibly as strong as Hisoka, so all of them were too strong for them to take on. Eventually, she also gave in, waiting for one of the Phantom Troupe members to break the silence and say something.

"Let the kid go, Feitan!" Nobunaga ordered. "I know exactly what you are planning to do."

"Oh really, what am I going to do then?"

"You are going to break the kids arm."

"I'll start by ripping off his fingernail, and slowly work myself up."

"I don't care how you're are planning to do it, just get the idea out of your head." The pair had a stare off, and it looked like no one else was going to split them apart. As they were about to get into a physical argument, a few bystanders stopped them, reminding them to obey their house rules. Hearing this, the two men agreed to settle things as per usual, by flipping a coin. If Nobunaga won, then Gon was safe for now, but if Feitan won, no one could predict what faith awaited Gon.

Himeko used this opportunity to look at Killua one more time, only to see him completely petrified by something. He wasn't going to intervene anytime soon, and neither was Hisoka going to allow them to interrupt. _"I doubt Killua is going to do anything about this, and not even Hisoka looks like he's going to save Gon,"_ she told herself, _"Could it be, are these people too strong for even Hisoka to take on? Is that why he's not doing anything, or is he just on their side? No, we can't rely on him, he would only help us if there is something in it for him. The short guy looks rash, if I move now he would kill not just Gon but me too. No one else seems to interrupt these two, so topknot is the only person who's somewhat sane right now. But if they flip the coin, there is only a fifty percent chance that Gon, Killua and I can get out alive, but we can't rely on fifty percent. If I draw my sword, we'll get killed, if I move, we'll get killed, but there has to be a way." _She watched as Nobunaga reached for a coin, but before he even had the opportunity to flip it, she stopped him. "Wait! May I get permission to speak?"

The attention turned from the centre to where she was standing, and all eyes were intensely staring at her. Seeing all their cold eyes, she felt like she made the biggest mistake in her life, instantly regretting having said anything at all. Sure, Gon was safe for now, but now she had to act and buy themselves some time. Killua however kept shaking his head, trying to tell her not to do anything reckless, but that was when Hisoka pressed his playing cards deeper into Himeko and Killua's necks, making a drop of blood drip down, wanting to silence them.

"There is no need for you to talk," Phinks yelled at her, "Unless you want to swap places with your little friend here." There was no denying, she expected at least one person to shoot her back down, and that person just happened to be the tall, blonde.

"Just let her finish her sentence, damn it! She might have remembered something about the chain user." Machi suggested, drawing their curiosity to what Himeko was actually going to say. "We are after the chain user remember, so let's not waste time with these kids."

_"The tall blonde is too hot-headed, and the short guy is too impulsive. Neither of them would give me a chance to speak, but I never expected anything less. Hisoka looks like he wants me to keep quiet too, but the woman with the pink hair seems to be on my side for this one,"_ she thought,_ "she looks like one of the smarter members, the guy with the topknot asked her for his ranking too. Her input seemed to have changed their opinion, but it looks like the guy with the topknot has the final say in this matter. Either way, I have to watch what I say."_

Nobunaga spent a moment thinking about it, and Machi did have a fair point. He put his coin back, and seeing this, Feitan backed off, freeing Gon from his grip. "You may talk, but why do you think we should trust you?"

"You have someone in your group who can check through memories, don't you?" She asked, before pointing over at Pakunoda, "It's her, she asked us all questions on the way here, and confirmed that none of us know anything about the person you are looking for. Naturally, I'm assuming that she can access our thoughts, and all she needs to do is touch us in order to do so. With someone like that in your group, and the fact that we are clearly out numbered, I'm not going to lie. I want us three to get out of here alive, and I'm aware of the consequences I'd have to face if I did lie, so I won't."

After ignoring the loud thumping in her chest, Himeko began to answer intelligently. Some of the members were quite impatient, so she didn't want to risk anything and kept her answer concise. It was a game she played for four years; trying to win people over with her words, but this time there was a lot at stake. As hoped, Nobunaga took the bait and asked Hisoka to back off a little to give her some space so she could speak. "Alright, what did you want to say?"

"I'd like to negotiate with you all!" She stated. "Ask me any questions you want to ask, I'll answer them all truthfully. But in return, you can't lay a finger on any of us." It was a very bold move, and her words could easily rub someone the wrong way. However, she'd rather garner attention to herself than let Gon speak. Gon's words were too straightforward, and he could have just lost and arm because of that. Killua would have done better than Gon, but with Hisoka behind them he couldn't think straight. He might have actually come up with a smarter idea to escape, but with him like that she had to step in. His fighting experience was definitely a disadvantage right for him but for Gon and Himeko who were still naive about the true strength of the troupe, their naivety could actually be an advantage.

Just like she predicted, Phinks snapped at her once more. "Do you really think you are in a position to give us orders?"

"No, we are clearly not in the position to be proposing a deal, but neither are you." She shot right back at him. "Think about it, we are obviously in a pinch, but so are you all. You need all the information you can get on this chain user, and all we need is to be safe and not threatened or harmed by any of you. We are all going to gain something from this; you guys could possibly receive just one tiny clue from me which could lead you to the chain user, and we remain unharmed. If you ask me, that's a win-win." Gon kept quiet during this ordeal. Knowing that Himeko had a plan to get them out of there, he didn't interrupt them. Killua on the other hand was praying for this all to go well, hoping that she doesn't get herself killed in the process.

"Fine, we'll go with your proposal!" Nobunaga finally agreed with her terms. "But before you start, tell me one thing! Aren't you afraid of us?"

"Her hands are trembling," Shizuku pointed out how the young girl was holding one hand tightly with her other, stopping it from shaking so much.

"I want her to answer the question!" Nobunaga stated, before repeating his question again. "Are you scared of us?"

"Well, for starters, there's a man standing behind me, threatening to paper cut me to death with a playing card." She told him with a nervous, half-hearted chuckle. "That should sum the rest up nicely." It was obviously a stupid question, everyone could see that part of her was regretting this all. But Nobunaga appreciated her honestly, and after a round of silence, he began to ask her questions related to them and the chain user. Himeko tried to keep her answers on point as promised, but at the same time, she didn't want to reveal too much.

"Do you know any conjurers or manipulators with the abilities to use chains?"

"I know of one conjurer," She admitted honestly, drawing everyone's curiosity on who this mysterious conjurer might be. Even Gon and Killua seemed interested as they didn't know any conjurers. "But he doesn't use chains, he uses swords and weaponry that is easy to use. Also, he isn't affiliated with the mafia, nor does he have any business in Yorkshin, so the chance of him being the chain user you are looking for is flat out zero." She spoke the truth, the only conjurer he knew was Natsume, and although he was an expert weapon user, he didn't like to fight with complicated weapons such as chains. The possibility that Kurapika could be the chain user hit her before, but she didn't know whether Kurapika was a conjurer or a manipulator, neither did she know for sure that he was the chain user.

"Who are you working for?"

"We are working for no one."

"Then why did you follow us?"

"There is a huge bounty on seven of your members, two billion jenny per head to be precise," she informed him. "The mafia wants you all captured dead or alive, so the whole city is after you. We posted an ad online, and got a reply after you and the girl with the pink hair were spotted at the cafe. We followed you from there before you caught us."

"Why would you need all that money?"

"For the auction, we want to get hold of an item. The item wouldn't be of any interest to you, but if you are going to ask what it is, it's a video game."

"What technique did you use to follow us, and who taught you?"

"We used _Zetsu_, it's one of the basic _Nen_ techniques. I was taught by a pro Hunter at a dojo in a different country, while these two were taught by a _Shingen-ryu_ master."

"Last question, what is your connection with the mafia?"

"We are not part of the mafia, neither are we associated with them. We just happened to get involved in the bounty hunting for the money which we need for the auction in a couple of days. Besides, we are barely teens, the mafia won't recruit us even if we wanted to join."

"She does have a good point!" Shalnark added after hearing her response. With that, the interrogation ended and Gon was released, although most of the answers were pretty much useless to them. Hisoka backed off, and the swarm of spiders dispersed, finally giving the trio a moment to breathe. Judging by that, they were safe for now, and Nobunaga led the way to hold a meeting with the other members.

Once they were a good distance away, Himeko gave in and dropped to the ground, _"I thought I was done for!" _

"Kou, are you okay?" Gon was the first one to rush to her, helping her stumble back up on her feet. "Your talking skills got us out of trouble again!" He beamed, proud of his friend's accomplishments.

"What did you think you were doing?" Killua on the other hand yelled at her as soon he felt more relaxed. "You could have gotten yourself killed!"

"Sorry, but I didn't like the possibility of Gon living the rest of his life with just one arm," she chuckled sheepishly, while rubbing the back of her neck.

Killua pulled on both of their ears, "You are not going to be reckless again, understood? Gon, when we get captured by someone, then keep your opinion to yourself, and you, stop making weird deals with strangers. You both could have gotten yourself killed today, so think before you act next time!" Gon and Himeko started to wince in pain, trying to get Killua to release his grip, but it only resulted in him pulling harder.

Nobunaga initiated his meeting, while keeping an eye at the three youngsters. The rest wondered why he was so obsessed with them, but no one except for Machi actually decided to point it out to him. "Isn't it about time we let them go?" She asked him. "I doubt they'll bother us again after what happened today."

But that was when Nobunaga revealed that he had completely different plans with what he wanted to do with the trio. "I want to recommend them to the boss, especially the kid in green." He explained, "He reminds me of Uvo, a strong fighter but when he fights for someone else, he is at his strongest."

"They are just children!" Franklin was the first one to point out. "We don't have the time to babysit them." No one seemed too fond of Nobunaga's idea, believing it was all going to be a waste of time. Although their opinions clashed, he still stood by his statement, eventually resorting to ask Shalnark, their groups most rational thinker about his opinion.

"The kid with the black hair seems strong and determined, but he is too pure. I doubt he'll ever hurt an ant, so he won't fit in with us. The girl is a good rational thinker, and honestly we need more people like that in our group, but she is too scared, she'll only be in our way. The kid with the slanted shows the most promise. His instincts are sharp and he knew exactly what kind of people he was dealing with, but having him in our group might backfire. If he ever grows up to be stronger than us, then I'll question his loyalty."

"See, just give up!" Phinks said bluntly. Now that even Shalnark has turned down Nobunaga's idea, the meeting proceeded with the next topic.

"Either way, the boss has given us another mission." Shalnark informed his fellow comrades, as he handed out the flyers with pictures of the Nostrade bodyguards. "The chain user must be one of the bodyguards working for the Nostrade family, so capturing any of the people on this flyer would be useful for us to get some information." With their task assigned to to them, the troupe began to disperse one by one in their usual pairs, but Nobunaga insisted he'd stay and watch after the children until their leader came back. He had found himself liking Gon, and there was no way he was going to change his mind until Chrollo gave his opinion. He reminded him of his deceased partner, Uvogin; simpleminded and rash, but they wanted to protect the people that meant most to them.

"Great, what am I supposed to do without a partner?" Machi asked in annoyance, seeing Nobunaga leave to look after the children.

"Well, pair up with the odd man left." Shalnark suggested, seeing that there was only one person left unpaired.

Machi looked around and spotted Hisoka waving at her. "Hi!" She mentally face-palmed, cursing at Nobunaga for making her work with an idiot, before she too ended up walking out with Hisoka to start their search for the chain user.

Although they were safe for now, Gon, Killua and Himeko ended up being locked up in a room with Nobunaga, the only Phantom Troupe member that stayed behind. He sat right in front of the only door out of the room, guarding it, and making it impossible for them to escape. There were no windows leading out of the place, and the youngsters were trapped with no where else to go. Hours past and the sun was eventually beginning to set outside the building. It was far too risky for them to try and escape now that it was dark outside, and they didn't know the area too well either. All they could do was helplessly stare at the candle that Nobunaga lit up to keep the room relatively bright.

"I'm only going to keep you here until the boss comes back," Nobunaga informed them for the nth time, reassuring them that he'd let them leave if Chrollo doesn't approve of Gon to join. "If he doesn't think you are suitable to become one of us, then I'll let you go."

"I'd rather die than join you!" Gon was quick to turn down his offer yet again, not wanting to have anything to do with these people.

"You shouldn't be taking the word dying so lightly, boy. If you sit obediently, then I might get your friends a membership too."

"Like I said, I won't be part of your group and I will not let my friends join you either!" Gon stuck to his decision and gave Nobunaga his blunt opinion.

"Hm, what do you think?" Nobunaga changed his target, trying to convince Himeko instead this time. "I see you practice swordsmanship, if you join, I can teach you properly."

"No, I'd rather pass on that offer," she too refuted his offer like Gon, but unlike him, she tried to remain calm, knowing that Nobunaga was intentionally trying to rile them up for his own amusement. "I already have a good teacher!"

He raised his brow in response to her answer, "Is he stronger than me?"

"No, he probably isn't, but I refuse to be taught by anyone else but him!" Arguing with her wasn't too much fun in his opinion; Himeko was too cautious of what she was saying, a trait he had seen a lot in his fellow group members like Machi, or Feitan whom were both transmuters. Like Himeko, they weren't much fun to argue with either and usually ended up spoiling the mood if they did. Gon reminded him a lot of the deceased Uvogin, someone simpleminded enough to argue back no matter how stupid the argument was. Nobunaga then turned to Killua, but as he was deep in his own thoughts, he left him alone, figuring he wouldn't be much fun either. "Seriously Gon, why do the bad guys like you so much?" Himeko sighed out of frustration.

"I don't know, is that bad?" Gon asked, "I'm honestly not doing it on purpose either!"

"Yes, it's pretty bad," she replied, "First that psychopath with stalking tenancies, now this bastard with the topknot."

While those two were talking and debating over why Gon had so many bad guys after him, Killua could only remember Hisoka's bloodlust earlier. If Himeko hadn't found a way to talk themselves out, then something could have happened to Gon, and all he could do was watch quietly from the sidelines. "_Don't fight anyone stronger than you. You're too weak, run away from them and give up." _All Killua could hear was Illumi's voice passing through his mind. It was frustrating, he couldn't do anything about it now, and he couldn't do anything about it when his friend was in danger. Small droplets of cold sweat rolled down his forehead, and his fingernails pierced through his skin when he clenched his fist too hard. Suddenly, he shot up from his seat and stared straight at Nobunaga.

The moment their friend stood up from his seat, Gon and Himeko ended their discussion to turn to him. There was something wrong with him, and they could clearly tell by the way his whole body was shaking. Nobunaga stared back at the silver haired boy in front of him. Compared to Killua's two friends who could only see his back, Nobunaga was able to see his dead and empty eyes. His brother's words finally got to him, and Killua finally lost himself, lusting for blood himself. Though Gon and Himeko knew something was odd about their friend's behaviour, they couldn't sense the bloodlust; only Nobunaga could. They all watched the boy slowly but steading making his way towards his opponent, but seeing this, Nobunaga got up and grabbed the sword around his waist. "Kid, if this is a challenge, then I'm not afraid to kill you." Killua immediately stopped walking. Nobunaga didn't look like he was joking, he could kill Killua with just one swipe. Once the reality of the situation hit him, he gave up and walked back powerless. After venting his frustration on the wall, he sat back down. "I'm going you tell all one final time. I will free you once the boss is back, but if you try to escape before that, then I will kill you." Nobunaga warned before he sat back down in front of the locked door. "That goes for you two, too. There is no point in thinking so hard, it's only going to hurt your head."

His threat didn't stop Gon and Himeko from thinking of a way out though. Neither of them wanted to be stuck in there any longer, and seeing how Killua was slowly loosing his sanity the longer he stayed in there, he would go completely insane if he remained in that room for much longer. Killua was on the same page as them, trying to think of a way out, but his plans were slightly different. Whilst Gon and Himeko were set on escaping as a trio, Killua was solely thinking of Gon and Himeko's safety, and was willing to stay behind and hold Nobunaga up.

His eyes travelled to his katana, trying to calculate his full range. _"With his sword, his range should be twice as much, if not more. Alone, I might be able to distract him for at least a second, and if those two are fast enough they could make it out of the door. They are smart enough to split up and escape. That way, at least one if not both of them could escape." _His head turned to the pair who were still in deep thoughts, trying to device a plan, and from there, Killua's eyes made their way to Himeko's katana. It was a little smaller, and the blade was slimmer than Nobunaga's, most likely because she was much smaller than him too. It was a blade gifted to her by her teacher, so of course he would have considered these factors. "Hey washboard, how long do you think his range with his sword is?"

Gon was the first one to snap out of his thoughts and doubtfully look at his best friend, and judging by that uneasy expression on his face, Gon knew what he was planning on doing, and he knew that there was something wrong with him. Himeko too got the impression that he was planning on taking their opponent down by himself after his previous attempt, and it surprised her that Killua was actually going to risk his life. Since the beginning of their pursuit, Killua remained cautious and tried his best to keep all three of them out of trouble, but now he was just acting plain reckless. "His katana is undoubtedly larger and heavier than mine, and he could easily be a whole lot more experienced than Natsu. The room is dim with him having the better view, he's blocking the only exit out and this room is tiny. He can easily cover the entire space in here."

It was her way of telling Killua, _"No, don't even think about it." _And with the obvious facts being pointed out, she hoped for him to just stay seated and think about this more logically like he always did. But this time, Killua was far from thinking logically. "It doesn't matter," he muttered quietly, "I will count to three, and I will charge at him. I'll only be ably to buy a second or two, but by that time you two have to get out of here."

"Experienced swordsman, large katana, small room, blocked exit," Himeko repeated once more, "what don't you understand here? I pointed out a good few reasons why you should just drop that thought completely, yet you still go and continue with your stupid excuse of a plan? Are you a retard?!"

"If it's impossible for all three of us to get out of here, at least two of us should."

"I'm warning you now, if you stand up again then I'll have to make you sit back down by force, even if I have to cut off both of your legs." She warned, "That guy isn't the only one with a sword, I have one too. From where I'm sitting, I'd have no problem forcing you to stay seated."

"I'd rather have you and Gon get away from here in one piece than all three of just dying for no reason."

"Don't even think about it, kid!" Nobunaga interrupted their conversation, seeing how stubborn Killua really was. "The girl is right, it's useless to try and escape. If anything, all three of you will end up dead. If I were you, I'd remain seated and listen to the girl."

Although the elder tried to tear the two apart, the tense atmosphere still remained between them as they exchanged intense glared. "Killua, I mean it! Stand up again and I will be forced to draw my sword against you." Gon was stuck between them, trying to calm Himeko down as she was sticking to her words and tightly holding onto her own katana. He knew that it was easier to get her to cooperate than him at this current moment, and as she began to settle down again and put away her weapon, he checked up on Killua, only to see him up on his feet again.

Now that Himeko was calmed down, Gon stood up and punched his friend on the head. "Ouch! What was that for?!" Killua yelled in pain, grabbing Gon by the collar of his green jacket.

"Stop being so selfish!" Gon wasn't afraid to yell right back at him. "We are not leaving you behind, so stop talking about dying like it's nothing. All three of us will get out of this alive, so stop trying to be the sacrificial lamb!"

"What?!" Killua exclaimed, before pointing out Gon's hypocrisy. "You did the same thing just a while ago."

"That's because I'm allowed to," Gon shit back, "but you aren't!"

Killua was clearly taken back by Gon's illogical argument, "Huh?"

Whilst the two boys were in the middle of their argument, the two bystanders could only sit back and watch. One found it a lot more amusing than the other, and hence Nobunaga bursted out into laughter after seeing the pair fight. He had stopped viewing the trio as his enemy after realising that none of them stood a chance against him. Instead, he began to see similarities in the personalities of these three and some of his own comrades. Seeing Gon and Killua argue like this made him reminisce about all the times he did the same with Uvogin, and he could somewhat relate with poor Killua. The more time he spent around Gon, the more he reminded him of his fallen comrade, making him even more determined to recruit him. "Just a heads up boy, you can't use logic against an enhancer!"

Ignoring Nobunaga's commentary, Killua continued to take his anger out on Gon. "If I could buy us all just one second, the two of you might be able to get out of this godforsaken place. Having two of us return alive is better than all three of us rotting to death in here. Who is the selfish one now?"

Killua was beginning to make more sense, making it increasingly difficult for Gon to find a good enough counter argument, "How am I supposed to know?" He questioned the taller boy, "According to you I'm just plain stupid, am I not?"

Nobunaga continued to laugh out loud at the scene, "You kids are hilarious!"

However, there was one person in the room who was slowly starting to lose her patience. With her friends' argument getting more ridiculous every second, and even their enemy laughing his head off looking at them, she was beginning to become irritated. Putting her katana aside, she stood up and quietly walked up to the boys from behind, whom were still caught up in their argument. She hit the pair on their head, before splitting them up and dragging them back to their seats. "Stop using your muscles to do all the thinking and use your heads for once!"

"We've been trying to do that for the past few hours now," Killua pointed out. "You've managed talk us out earlier, but that's not going to work anymore. We have to think of something else, and if we can't then someone has to stay behind."

"But Kou talking us out worked, didn't it?" Gon questioned. "We managed to get out alive then, and we will manage to do it now, too."

"Gon, are you deaf?" Killua snapped at him yet again. "We have already thought of every possible way out, and you just blew your only ticket out."

"If you wanted me to abandon you, then that would have never happened! Kou and I won't leave you behind and run away, that's absurd!" The argument went back and forth again, and Himeko didn't expect anything else from these two. She ended up hitting them on the head again to shut them up, so now they were both quietly sitting with two red bumps on their heads.

She was now sitting in between the boys to avoid them arguing any more. After crossing her arms, she was deep in thoughts for a while before she got an idea. "How about I tell you two a story?"

"I don't want to hear your stupid story!" Killua said bluntly in response, only to get hit the third time by her. With yet another bump on his head, he was forced to shut up and keep his honest opinion to himself.

"Let her tell the story!" Nobunaga exclaimed, after eavesdropping into their conversation. "It could pass some time, we don't have anything better to do after all. All we are doing is sitting her and staring at each other, so it could be entertaining."

Ignoring his remark, Himeko began telling her story in a rather irritated and annoyed tone; the exact opposite of how a story teller should sound. "Long ago, there were two very stupid boys, one of them was called Gin, and the other was called Kullua. They were both lucky and fortunate enough to be friends with a beautiful, charming and intelligent girl called Ko."

After realising where this story was going, Killua once again felt the need to make his opinion known, "Kullua is a stupid name, and this story is lame!" He exclaimed in utter boredom, finishing his sentence off with a loud, obnoxious yawn. As he didn't learn his lesson the first three times, Killua was once again shut up by the smaller girl, before she got a chance to continue the story she made up on the spot.

"One day, the three friends were abducted by an infamous gang and were thinking of a way out, but Gin and Kullua were acting recklessly. They were both talking about dying, and sacrificing themselves to get out, so their sane friend Ko had to get them to listen, and she was willing to use any method to get them to listen."

Gon knew that these characters were all just self-inserts, and a way for Himeko to get a point across. After looking at the annoyed expression on her face, he gulped before asking her what she wanted to do that current moment. "What did Ko do?"

"Gin and Kullua were stubborn and didn't listen to Ko's words so she resorted to other methods, she ended up breaking their legs, so they couldn't do anything reckless anymore. They were eventually able to get away from the gang, but the two boys weren't able to walk for months. Moral of the story; always listen to Ko, if not she will break your bones."

As per usual, Killua added his comment as soon as she finished story telling "That was a stupid story!" And this was how Killua received his fifth bump on his head.

Killua's painful face made Nobunaga laugh out loud again, seeing the resemblance between Himeko and once of his own comrade, "You remind me Machi, blunt, cold and a violent exterior, but looking out for the idiots of the group."

"I don't appreciate being compared to one of your kind," she pointed out in irritation, "we are nothing like you people, so don't bother trying to compare us to you guys!"

"Calm down, Kou! There is no point getting worked up like you said," Gon reminded her of her own words, before asking her for a suggestion on how to get out. "What do you suggest we do then?"

"I don't know myself, but have you guys ever read that fairytale before?" She suddenly remembered a story she read as a child; a story that was frightening enough to make her cry as a child. "Hansel and Gretel, a pair of siblings got lost in the forest after running away from home. Although that part doesn't relate with our situation, the pair did get imprisoned by the evil witch. Gretel was supposed to her servant, while Hansel was fed to become big enough to be eaten later. The witch was blind, so Hansel fooled her for days by giving her a bone to feel, making her believe that he was still too thin to be eaten. Once she prepared the oven to prepare her long awaited meal, Gretel pushed her in, shut her in and escaped along with her brother." This time around, she wasn't fooling around and told them a real story she had read before in a story book. "Although they were about to be eaten, those kids managed to outwit her together, and escape together." She finished telling the story before turning to Gon, "Your head, use it!" She smiled, before she turned to Killua. "You too, think before you act!"

"How's that supposed to help, it's just a fictional tale," Killua pointed out, "we don't have an oven to push him in either!"

While Killua and Himeko put their thinking caps back on, something sparked Gon's mind all of the sudden. "Guys, remember the techniques Zepile taught us earlier today? The last one in particular, I can't remember what it was though." Himeko and Killua were thinking of ways out, but Gon was trying to remember the last method Zepile taught them.

"Gon, we have other things to worry about!" Killua reminded him, but Gon just ignored him.

"Welding, exposing, there was a third one, but I can't remember it!" Gon tried to recall the three methods again and again, but ended up frustrated when he could never remember the last method. He tried listing them again, "Welding, exposing..."

"Sidestepping," Himeko added without putting much thought into it, "the last technique was sidestepping, Gon."

"That's it, sidestepping!" Gon exclaimed in excitement, and that was when the other two finally realised. Their eyes widened as the answer was so simple, it was right in front of their noses.

"You're a genius, Gon!" Himeko exclaimed, as she too shot up.

"How can we overlook something so simple?" Killua questioned, and after the trio had their little celebration, they turned to face Nobunaga who was keeping a close eye on their sudden stirred behaviour. After the trio suddenly activated their _Ren_, Nobunaga knew it was time to stand back again and guard the door with his katana. He proceeded to warn them as per usual, but this time they wouldn't listen and sit back down.

"I'm not especially skilled at controlling my strength, so don't make me kill you!" Nobunaga tightly gripped the sword around his waist, and waited for the trio to come within his range. However, as the three did charge at him, they separated ways; one going left, one going right, and one stopping right in the centre of the room, jumping up.

"If the exit is blocked…"

"... and if there is no other way out…"

"... then just make your own exit!" With that, Gon, Killua and Himeko broke through the walls, and parted ways to exit the dimmed room. Nobunaga looked around, and after a quick thought, he decided to chase after Gon for now and use him to lure the other two out. He leaped through the hole, walking through the next room and stepped through the two other holes Gon had created, but he just ended up at a dead end. Gon managed to trick him; the last hole was just a decoy, and Gon used the chance to escape into the hallway. Nobunaga stormed out angrily before trying to sense their presence, but it was not use. He thought back and remembered Himeko telling them about their knowledge of _Zetsu_ earlier that day. Suddenly, he turned to the right of the hallway after hearing Gon's voice, trying to reach out for his friends. "Kou, Killua, where are you two? I'm heading downstairs!"

Nobunaga's attention turned up, as he heard a voice coming from the upper floor. "I'm still upstairs, I'm trying to find a staircase leading down." It was a feminine voice, and he was sure it belonged to Himeko.

Another voice came from his left, "I'm downstairs, so hurry up!"

He heard Gon's voice coming from his right once again. "We can beat him if we work together. Let's attack him all at once!"

Nobunaga couldn't sense their presences, so in case they did decide to plan an ambush against him, he decided to use _En_; and extension of his aura. Using _En_, he would be capable of sensing any movement within his _En_ range, despite the fact that they were using _Zetsu_. Once they were in his _En_ circle, he planned to draw his sword and put an end to them once and for all. As he cautiously walked through the dead silent hallway, he continued to look out for the trio and waited for them to ambush him. But what Nobunaga was unaware of was the fact that the trio had already escaped the building while he was wandering around.

"Idiot!" Killua stuck his tongue out at the building behind him, as they continued running away from it. Ambushing was a stupid idea, but it worked as a good decoy to distract their enemy. As soon as they parted ways, Killua realised that Gon was being followed by Nobunaga, so he used the opportunity to devise a plan and send a text to the other two.

"To think he actually fell for that," Himeko thought out loud in astonishment. "I guess he isn't as smart as he looks." The last thing she expected from Nobunaga was for him to be this simpleminded. Killua's plan was thought of in a rush, and on the spot, so she guessed that it would take more than just that to fool the Phantom Troupe member.

Compared to the two transmuters, Gon was the only one who sighed in disappointment, "I still want to beat him up!"

"That's impossible right now!" Killua stated while climbing over the wire fence, surrounding the abandoned buildings. "We only know basic _Nen_, going after him now will get us killed. You have to consider the fact that we barely managed to escape."

"Are you really that certain?"

"One hundred percent!" Killua answered with full confidence, waiting for the other two to make it over the fence. As soon as they were on the other side, Gon and Himeko looked at each other and smiled, before looking over at Killua and giving him a wide grin. "What's up with you two? Stop looking at me like that, you are creeping me out!"

"You finally sound like yourself again!" Gon was over the moon now that Killua was back to his usual self, and Himeko just stood next to him, letting him do all the talking while nodding along. "It's our job to say all the crazy things, but it's your job to stay cool and control us."

Himeko kept nodding, agreeing with Gon, until she finally realised what he said. "Wait, what do you mean by _us_? I'm sane and compared to you two, I was the one keeping the cool head in there!"

Hearing that compliment all of the sudden made the tips of Killua's ears go red out of embarrassment, and after ignoring Himeko's input, Gon patted his friend's shoulder before running off into the woods. "We are counting on you!"

"Hey, what do you mean by _we_?" Himeko yelled in displeasure, before running after Gon. "I don't need anyone to look after me, especially not someone who just wanted to throw his life away so casually!"

Killua looked ahead, and once the pair was a certain distance away from him, he sighed before running after them. _"What a selfish bunch!"_ The trio made their way back to Yorkshin city after safely escaping the grasps of Nobunaga, and after they all managed to calm down from what just happened, they decided to discuss what to do next. Killua in particular was quite interested in what Gon wanted to do now that he had met the Phantom Troupe. "What do you want to do next?"

It didn't take long for him to answer though, "I want to defeat those guys." Seeing how determined Gon was with his ambition, Killua could only sigh. But then again, once Gon had an idea stuck in his head, he was never able to sit still until he fulfilled it. However, he wasn't the only person who thought that way. Even the slightly more sane Himeko was siding with Gon's idea this time around.

"Well, didn't we agree to come to Yorkshin to help Kurapika to fight the Phantom Troupe in the first place?" she questioned them. "It was our original objective, remember?"

It was two against one, and after hearing Himeko's point, he couldn't argue back anymore. Instead, he had to plan ahead on behalf of all three of them. "We would have to improve our _Nen_ in that case. _Nen_ gives their user unlimited potential, so we'll have a chance against them once we've brushed up on our skills. The fastest way for us to do that, is to ask Kurapika."

"Kurapika?" Gon asked, confused at the random mention of Kurapika. "But we still haven't gotten in touch with him yet."

"Yes, the chain user they were talking about was Kurapika." Killua continued to explain, knowing that Gon wouldn't have realised it yet. "He somehow managed to take one of them down, so he is our best bet. We all started learning _Nen_ around the same time, yet he managed to become stronger than us, going on to become stronger than even a veteran _Nen_ user."

"So, the chain user was Kurapika after all!" Himeko exclaimed.

"You thought so, too?"

"Yeah, he was the first person to pop into my mind based on the description, but I wasn't entirely sure. There are a lot of people who had their families killed by them, and if I was one of them, then I'd go after them too. But wow, Kurapika must be extremely strong; stronger than even Killua. I guess the tables have turned since the Hunter exams!"

Hearing this, Gon still couldn't get his head around the fact that Kurapika managed to get this far in such a short amount of time. "Kurapika, huh?"

"You didn't realise?"

"Nope."

"Remember, Wing-san told us that Kurapika had completed his _Nen_ training once we completed our training? He gave us a status update on everyone, and out of everyone who went out to train from our batch, Kurapika finished his training first. If anyone has the answers to our questions, then he is the one."

"In that case, let's go and look for Kurapika first!" Himeko announced before she ran ahead, and Gon was the next one to follow, leaving Killua to just watching the two run ahead. He knew that the training and whatever was going to happen over the next couple of days was going to be tough. One storm had already passed, but another storm was beginning to brew, and he could sense the danger approaching from miles away. However, he couldn't help but let out a small smile, watching his two friends run ahead and act like the children they truly were. His family took his childhood away from him, but he wasn't willing to let anyone take it away again. Not his, not Gon's and not Himeko's.

"Oi, do you two idiots even know where you are going?"


	27. Reunion with Kurapika

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 26**

_Reunion with Kurapika_

...

While Gon, Killua and Himeko were kept captive, a lot had happened in the heart of the city. After Light Nostrade returned to Yorkshin, he wanted his daughter to return home immediately. He ordered two of his daughter's bodyguards, along with her servants to guide her home safely. What Light and Kurapika did not know was the picture of Neon that was floating around the internet. Knowing of the specialist ability Neon possessed, Chrollo headed after her and conveniently, Neon disguised herself and escaped from the airport to head back to the auction by herself. On the way to the auction, she was stopped by guards around the auction building, and was asked to leave, before she met Chrollo, who got her access into the auction hall. The two spent a couple of hours together at one of the restaurants in the building just talking about life, before Chrollo tested her ability out. After stealing her power and knocking her unconscious causing a stir, he left.

While Chrollo was in the auction building, Kurapika had just finished a meeting with some of the worlds top assassins, who were all hired to take out the Phantom Troupe. During the meeting, Kurapika was surprised to see two of Killua's relatives amongst the assassins, realising that the mafia was going as far as hiring top-notch assassins to capture the spiders. The meeting was quick to end with one final decision; all assassins were to work alone. Afterwards, after hearing the news of Neon going missing, Kurapika and Light immediately headed towards the auction hall, where Kurapika knew she'd be.

After confirming her state, he left her alone with her father and walked down the hallway, when he suddenly received a call. He took the phone out of his pocket, thinking it would be Melody calling him again, but this time the number was unknown. Nonetheless, he picked up thinking it must be work related, "Hello?"

"It's me, Gon!"

Hearing that familiar voice again, Kurapika was taken back for a second, "Is that really you, Gon?" He questioned in disbelief.

"Yeah, and Kou and Killua are here with me, too."

"That's great, Gon, but I'll call you back when I'm free. I'm busy with work right now."

Before Kurapika could go ahead and cut the call on him, he chose to stop him immediately. "No, wait! Just give me one minute to say something." There was a brief moment of silence, and Gon waited for a couple of seconds to confirm whether Kurapika was still on the line. However, after hearing incoherent chatter in the background, Gon knew that he was still on the line, much to his relief. Although Kurapika initially thought Gon was calling him to arrange a get together, the desperation in his voice told him otherwise. After knowing that he was quite busy with his job, Gon was still persistent and this caught Kurapika's attention. Gon then decided to continue, "I met the Phantom Troupe!" he confessed, leaving the older blonde dumbstruck. "Not just me, but Kou and Killua did, too. We were all captured by them earlier today."

Kurapika's eyes widened as he was completely lost for words. He couldn't recall the number of times he had warned his friends of how strong and dangerous these criminals were, yet they still decided to mess with them. One part of him was put at ease to hear that all three got out alive and unharmed, but that was very short-lived. Kurapika grew furious, and he could only vent his anger at the younger boy by raising his voice at him, "Are you three out of your minds?!"

His voice was quite loud, and though Gon didn't put the phone on speaker, Killua and Himeko could hear his objection loud and clearly. It wasn't too surprising, considering the number of stories Kurapika had told them during the Hunter exam. Gon's way choice of words didn't match the seriousness of this situation, and to Kurapika it just sounded as if the trio were recklessly throwing their lives away. Then Killua asked Gon to pass the phone over to him, hoping he could somehow reason with Kurapika. "We have decided that we want to help defeat the Phantom Troupe, so we wanted you to teach us _Nen_. We are aware of the fact that you managed to defeat one of them already, so you are the only person we can turn to right now."

"That is out of the question!" Kurapika shot his request down almost immediately, knowing that he was heading towards that direction. "I'm going to handle this alone!"

Killua expected that response from him, and he knew that it was going to be difficult to convince Kurapika to allow them to help out. Kurapika was acting rather unreasonable, which he expected before asking Gon to hand over the phone to him. The Phantom Troupe were the criminals he was after for over four years now, and after such a long wait and preparation, they were finally within Kurapika's reach. Although everyone worried about Kurapika's recklessness, Killua was possibly the only one who looked past his rash nature when it came to the Phantom Troupe, trusting Kurapika of all people to head in with a plan. He would be blinded with rage when confronted with the Phantom Troupe, but his rashness wasn't comparable to that of Gon, Leorio or even Himeko. Knowing this, Killua was sure that he could somehow convince Kurapika to let them in on his plan.

"We've been to their hideout, and we know where it is." Killua made a strong point, hoping their first hand encounter with the Phantom Troupe would provide Kurapika with the information he was after. Judging by the fact that Kurapika seemed to have calmed down after his sudden anger fit, Killua hoped that this would somehow catch his attention. "We are also aware of some of their abilities, don't you want to know?"

Kurapika knew exactly where he was going to head with this, and he couldn't deny that it sounded like a fair trade at first. In exchange for the bits of information they had gathered, they would most likely want to get involved in the chase. However, getting involved with the Phantom Troupe was risky, and unlike receiving a couple pieces of information, it could end with death. Although Killua was trying to make an equal trade, one side was immensely outweighing the other. Getting caught by the Phantom Troupe was more than enough involvement already, and now that they've also managed to escape from their grasps, the trio would have left an unforgettable impression on the members. If they were to ever come face to face again, the Phantom Troupe would try and catch them a second time, merely because they managed to escape the first time. However, if the Phantom Troupe discovers their involvement with the man who killed their comrade Uvogin, they would make it their task to hunt the trio down as well, whether they are caught dead or alive.

Besides, Kurapika has already made a pact with Hisoka, who was coincidentally a member of the Phantom Troupe himself. Hisoka still wasn't trusted by anyone in the Phantom Troupe, but nonetheless, he would have gathered more information on the members over the past years than the trio would have done in a couple of hours. He calmly decided to turn Killua's offer down. "I've got my own source of information."

Killua had no response prepared, knowing exactly why Kurapika was so against the idea of them helping out. Kurapika too, just held onto his phone, waiting for Killua to say something in return. But no matter how much he thought, he couldn't manage to think of a logical reason which would be able to convince him to let them assist him.

Whilst he was trying to find a way to indirectly convince Kurapika and make him ask for help, Gon decided to get straight to the point. "We want to help, too." He could hear Gon protesting in the background. Kurapika knew that out of the three, Killua would be in the best position to understand why he didn't want to get the trio involved. Gon on the other hand was the most stubborn out of the three, and when he puts his mind to something, it was always really difficult to talk him out of it.

Kurapika was walking on a thin line, trying his best to calmly talk the three out of whatever they were planning on doing, wanting to keep his anger in check. However, Gon's words were enough for him to snap. "I'm not going to assist you with your own suicide, that is out of the question!"

His words were once again loud enough for everyone to hear, although Killua didn't turn on the speaker on his phone. Now that Kurapika finally snapped, Killua deemed it nearly impossible for them to convince him. Before Gon could argue back with him, Himeko snatched the phone off Killua, much to his dismay. Judging by her expression, Killua knew that she was planning on shouting back at him in Gon's place, something Kurapika clearly wasn't in the mood for. "What was that for?" Killua questioned, wanting her to pass the phone back to him quietly, but she just ignored him and began yelling into the phone.

"We don't want to die either," she shot back, "we know exactly how strong they are now that we've met them, but we are not going to sit around and watch you get killed!"

"This is my battle, stay out of it."

"Then it's our battle too, just let us help you out, even if you just want us to play a very small part!" Himeko's stubbornness was surprisingly on par with Gon's, and there was no way for Kurapika to debate over this anymore. All she was going to say now was _'we want to help you too, let us help', _and he would reply with the same answer over and over again. Gon was the same case, he wasn't going to listen to him either. In hopes that they would eventually calm down, and wanting to calm himself down as well, Kurapika cut the call. Himeko listened to the loud beeping in silence, realising that Kurapika had cut the call on her. "Hello? Hello? Kurapika, please tell me you haven't hung up yet! Kurapika? Hello?" She tried her best to deny it, trying to repeatedly call out for Kurapika, but all she could hear was the continuous beeping sound. She then turned to Gon and Killua who were hoping that she was just fooling around, "He cut the call…"

"What?!" Killua exclaimed, hoping that the call cut accidentally and Kurapika didn't cut it on purpose. "Pass the phone!" He snatched the phone off her again and began to redial Kurapika's number.

"_This number is currently switched off, please try again later."_

He decided to try again, and began calling his phone again, but once again, he was faced with the same response.

"_This number is currently switched off, please try again later."_

"Damn it!" Killua clenched the phone in his hand out of frustration, but was stopped by Gon who reminded him that the phone will break if he continued. The only chance they had to become strong enough to face the Phantom Troupe was gone. "Are you happy now? He cut the phone because of you and now his phone is switched off."

"Stop it Killua, don't take your anger out on Kou." Gon held Killua back to prevent them from getting into an argument. But after seeing how she wasn't preparing to fight back, he let him go.

"I'm sorry!"

The two boys looked at her, and Killua couldn't help but let it go. He let out a big sigh to relief all his frustration, after all, it was only a momentary outburst. The fact that it took so long to actually get in touch with Kurapika and he cut the call on them was somehow disappointing, but he expected this to happen anyway. Himeko did lose her calm and ended up taking her anger out on Kurapika, so he couldn't blame him, but he couldn't blame Himeko either. Leorio and her were worried sick about him, and Kurapika didn't seem to understand that. Either way, he would have eventually decided to cut the call on them. Even if Himeko remained calm, Gon would have caused the final blow to cause Kurapika to cut the connection completely.

"What's done is done," Killua sighed once again, now that he managed to get a grip. "Let's get going, we'll head back to the hotel. Leorio much be waiting for us."

Killua started walking ahead, leading his pair of stubborn friends to the hotel, and Himeko quietly followed. After realising that Gon wasn't following, the pair stopped and turned around to see the stationary Gon still in deep thoughts. "I gave a feeling that we'll see Kurapika soon," he said with full confidence, as if he managed to predict their near future. It was hard for them to believe at first, remembering how touchy this topic was to Kurapika, but they decided to trust Gon's intuition for now. Maybe he was right, Kurapika might suddenly change his mind for whatever reason, a reason none of them could think of yet. With that, the trio left to go back to the hotel, knowing that Leorio would be worried sick by now.

After Kurapika cut the call, he was startled by rapid gunshots outside the building. He ran outside to meet some of the mafia members staring off at a figure approaching them from the distance. He squinted his eyes and saw it was one of the members of the mafia community, but something was just not right. He had a lunatic smile plastered on his face, and walked towards them with a gun in his hand, until he finally started going on a rampage. Kurapika ran back inside to avoid the bullets, but when he looked back, he saw the other mafia members fall to the ground with gun wounds all over their bodies. The manipulated man soon fell down onto the floor after getting hit due to the random shooting by the other mafia members.

"_Something doesn't feel right."_ Kurapika thought as he peeked from his hiding place. He was right, something certainly wasn't right in Yorkshin city. The Phantom Troupe went out of their way to show the city what they were made of. They destroyed everyone and everything that came in their way and weren't willing to leave anything behind until they found the person they were looking for. Kurapika somehow got the gist of the situation; the Phantom Troupe was prepared to kill anyone until they found him.

No one was safe in the city anymore, and out of all the assassins the mafia had hired, only Silva Zoldyck, Zeno Zoldyck and Kurapika remained. During the chaos that took place over the past couple of hours, Silva and Zeno decided to stay low, but now that they finally found the Phantom Troupe's leader, they thought it was finally their time to come out and play with the spiders. Both sides acknowledged each other's strengths; Chrollo remembered Silva defeating one of his old members, while the two Zoldycks remembered the effort it took to defeat the previous #8. Although a battle broke out between the two sides, all three of them were careful not to use their full potential, showing only a glimpse of their true abilities.

The fight didn't last for too long, and it stopped once Silva received a phone call from his son Illumi. Illumi wasn't the type to call regularly, in fact, he rarely phoned his father and only called regarding their family business. Knowing that this must be something regarding one of his recent missions, Silva picked up the call and waited for his son to explain why he called. It somehow turned out that Illumi was involved in this giant mess all this time. He informed his father about his job to take out the Ten Dons, as well as the leaders of the mafia community and wanted to know whether his client, Chrollo Lucifer, was still alive. Ironically, the two heads of the Zoldycks were hired by the mafia, while Illumi was hired by Chrollo, and thus the three ended up fighting on opposite sites. Although this was quite rare, it did happen from time to time, and this time, Illumi beat both his father and grandfather in the race.

Once Illumi passed on the message, he decided to end the call and let Silva make the final decision. Their clients were all dead, and with no one left to reward them, let alone give them instructions, the pair decided to quit too. The fight was over, and all they could do was return back to Kukuroo mountain after wasting their time in Yorkshin city. Silva passed on the final message to Chrollo from Illumi, who wanted a cheque written out for him with the discussed sum and then sent over to their mansion on Kukuroo mountain.

Seeing the pair leave without another word, Chrollo looked rather disappointed at first, yet their sudden change of heart left him quite curious. "Aren't you planning on continuing our battle?"

"The Zoldycks do not kill for pleasure." Zeno answered sternly. "Everything we do runs in the business."

His straightforward answer drew a line between themselves and the actions of the Phantom Troupe. Sure, both parties killed, yet one side only did it for money and wouldn't harm anyone without a request, while Chrollo often didn't care who got hurt in his plans. The elder Zoldyck's clients were dead, so they had no one to get a reward from anymore.

"Who do you think would have won if we had continued?"

"We would have been victorious," Zeno answered his question yet again, but he couldn't deny that if Chrollo did get serious, things could have gone differently. Giving Chrollo one last glance, the pair finally exited the room to head back home, leaving the leader of the Phantom Troupe behind. The Zoldycks were smart, they fought cautiously; something Chrollo expected. However, he couldn't help but drop to his knees in disappointment. He wanted their abilities, if he was able to get his hands on their powers everything would have worked out in his favour. As neither of them showed their true potential and almost played around with him, he was unable to steal their abilities. For now, he had to be satisfied with Neon Nostrade's ability, and to give it a test run, he wasted no time to gather the rest of the Phantom Troupe for a meeting at the abandoned warehouse.

A couple of hours later, Kurapika left the hospital where Neon was going to stay. He was approached by two men in black who informed him of the biggest news floating around in the community right now. The corpse of the Phantom Troupe's leader was found, and the news was spreading around the community like a wild fire. However, Kurapika wasn't convince just yet. There was no way that the leader of one of the world's most notorious groups was dead and he wasn't going to be convinced until he saw for himself. To see the corpse with his own eyes, he sets out to the site where the corpse was found. The area was sealed off with members of the mafia everywhere, examining the body.

"There were five other bodies found around the city. They all matched the description." Another man came up and informed the investigators.

Kurapika couldn't deny it anymore. Chrollo's lifeless corpse was lying right in front of him, but he wasn't too happy with it. He wasn't happy at all. They died too quickly, and they died in the hands of someone else. Kurapika swore to kill these monsters with his own two bare hands, but that didn't happen, and it couldn't happen anymore either. Without anything else left to do at the scene, Kurapika ran back to the auction hall to continue his original task. He had to get hold of the things Neon Nostrade requested for and made it just in time for the final item; a pair of the Kurta's Scarlet eyes.

Although the city was in the midst of chaos, Gon, Himeko and Killua somehow managed to safely make their way back to their hotel. The trio was still slightly disappointed with how their phone call with Kurapika turned out, but there was also a sense of relief that Kurapika was safe and not hurt. Not only that, they have also managed to confirm the identity of the mysterious chain user the Phantom Troupe was after, but as of now, they could only imagine how strong he must have gotten in order to be able to defeat one of the stronger members.

They took the elevator up, and began to discuss what they were planning on doing next. Killua saw no point in continuing the chase after the spiders, and kept reminding the other two about their objective to make enough money for the auction. Himeko argued that the original objective they had agreed on before splitting up was to assist Kurapika, and that they should at least try to call him back once they gave him some time to calm down. Although Gon was on Himeko's side, he didn't think that there was a need to call Kurapika, stating that he would eventually try and get back in touch with them himself. As usual, there were a few minor disagreements between the three, but in the end, they managed to come to an agreement. Kurapika was their friend, so of course they couldn't just let him do this all by himself, but for now, it was important for them to let him calm down and give him some time to think. Hearing the news of their capture and escape must have been a shock to him, and they couldn't exactly blame Kurapika either. That small group of monsters managed to wipe out his entire clan in just one night; them having to wipe out three rookie Hunters won't take them that long. Whatever the case may be, it was best for them to wait for Kurapika until he was prepared to include them in his plan and until then, they had to focus on saving enough money for Gon's video game.

With that out of their minds for now, the trio entered their hotel room, wanting to inform Leorio of everything that had been happening so far. The last time they saw him was at the cafe, before they decided to pursuit Machi and Nobunaga, but it has been hours since then. Leorio wasn't aware of the turnout of their pursuit, neither was he informed of their hostage situation. They expected him to jump at him with an overly concerned expression, screaming at them for not updating him on their situation. Instead they found both Leorio and Zepile having their own little party with alcohol and snacks when they were meant to be preparing for the auction.

Seeing the kids stand by the door, Leorio raised his can of beer and invited them in with excitement. "Hey kids, join us!" Looking at the empty cans scattered around the room, the three concluded that by now, he must have been pretty intoxicated. Zepile on the other hand was worse off, looking like he was on the verge of passing out any time soon.

Killua just sighed at their irresponsible behaviour and was the first to enter the room. "I don't mean to spoil your fun, but all three of us are under-aged." Killua pointed out, giving his drunk friends the look of disapproval. "Besides, aren't you under-aged, too?"

"My body might be that of a child, but my soul is that of a real man!" Leorio slurred on his words, mumbling whatever rubbish he could think of. "Where I'm from, the legal age is sixteen, and I'm well past that!" The reason the pair suddenly decided to have a mini party was still unknown, maybe they were in a good mood, or maybe the stress of the auction finally got to them. Whatever it was, it was best to wait for them to sober up. Until then, Killua sat down beside Leorio, and Gon and Himeko joined him. There were a couple of unopened snacks lying around, so Gon grabbed those and passed them around while Himeko was looking for any non-alcoholic drinks the pair might have bought in the mountain of unopened cans. While she was looking, Leorio passed her three cans of beer, "Try this, it's really good. A bit of alcohol now and then won't hurt, on the contrary, it will start to build up your alcohol tolerance. You'll be heavy weights in the future."

Gon and Killua blankly stared at the interactions between Leorio and Himeko, waiting for her to reject the offer and knock some sense into the elder. But no matter how long they waited, she didn't turn down the offer and accepted a can, much to their surprise. She was the youngest out of the trio, and whilst Gon and Killua had already turned thirteen, she was still only twelve; not even a teenager yet.

"Kou!" Gon exclaimed in utter disbelief.

"You're not actually going to drink that, are you?" Killua questioned. "We have more than enough trouble already."

Himeko ignored the pair, shaking the can vigorously for a good amount of time instead of opening it straight away. "Leorio," she called his name, waiting for the elder to slowly turn his face around. He leaned in closer, wanting to get a closer look at the beer can she was pointing at his face. Once he was close enough though, she opened the can and watched the content of the can spray out on his face. Gon and Killua watched in silence, and once the can was empty, Leorio eventually gave in and collapsed on the floor, face first. While they waited for him to wake up and become sober again, Killua made her clean the mess she made a few moments ago. Gon also started to clear away the mess made, collecting everything in a large, black bag whilst nagging Killua to help out instead of just bossing Himeko around.

Eventually, Zepile woke up, complaining about the throbbing pain in his head, and Leorio soon followed with a similar pain in his head. The pair wasn't completely sober yet, but they were a lot better and less irritating than they were an hour ago. For now, Killua began to tell them about the outcome of their pursuit, trying to inform him of the kind of people they were dealing with.

"You were captured by the Phantom Troupe?!" Leorio exclaimed in surprise. The news was more than enough to get the pair to sober up completely. "And you also managed to escape all by yourself?"

"Yes, and we managed not to get killed, too." Himeko added a slightly sarcastic remark. "Although there were a few moments when I thought that I was going to be a goner."

"We only managed to escape because just one of their members was left in charge of looking after us," Killua pointed out. "Escaping from the top-knot guy was difficult enough, I can't imagine having to escape when surrounded by more than just one of them."

"That top-knot guy seemed to be one of the stronger members in the group though. Since their leader was absent today, the guy with the top-knot took charge of everyone, so although we got away today, we might not have the same luck next time around. The only reason he spared us was because he saw potential in Gon to join their team."

Leorio and Zepile were surprised to hear the full story, especially after he mentioned them wanting to recruit Gon out of all people. Gon then turned to Zepile and smiled. "We actually used the technique you taught us. It helped us escape."

Zepile looked slightly confused. He was experienced in spotting antiques, but he wasn't a Hunter as of yet, and neither did he have any experience in fighting. "My technique?"

"We used the concept of sidestepping to escape through the walls… and through the ceiling," Killua explained, and at the thought of that, it started to make more sense to Zepile. Not just that, he was actually pretty impressed at the fact that they managed to apply such a technique to find a way to escape. Sidestepping was an unfamiliar term to Leorio, so Zepile took the time to briefly go through all three techniques with him, and after he imagined using the technique to escape from a locked room, it seemed quite ingenious. A simple, yet smart idea; something only Gon could come up with. Killua then turned to Himeko. "That reminds me, why did you escape through the ceiling anyway?"

"Well, I was in the middle, and I knew you two were going to escape through the left and right walls. He would have caught me if I escaped through the ground, and if I followed either of you, he would have come after us. Besides, he probably expected me to climb down the stairs to exit the building, but I just jumped out of one of the windows instead."

"Normal people don't jump out of windows."

"Normal people don't go after an infamous group of bandits either."

"Touché."

Zepile just smiled at the unexpected turn of events. He grew fond of Gon after seeing how eager he was to learn about compared to his two friends who were smarter than him, but didn't have the same willingness to learn new things. The fact that he actually managed to apply something he learnt so recently into a real life situation, under a lot of pressure managed to impress him, too. "I'm glad to hear that I was of some use."

Gon returned his usual wide grin. "Yeah, it was really useful. Thank you for teaching us, I doubt we would have managed to escape if we haven't met you today." Once Leorio and Zepile calmed down after hearing the updates on their chase, Gon decided to drop the next bomb. "Before we forget to mention this, we also got to speak to Kurapika."

The mention of Kurapika's name managed to draw the attention of Leorio whose eyes opened wide. It seemed like he finally sobered up completely. "Kurapika?!" He exclaimed, wondering whether he had misheard the name. "You actually managed to get through to him?"

"Yes, we were going to ask him to teach us _Nen,_ but unfortunately we weren't able to talk to him for too long." Killua turned to Himeko once again, as it was her short temper that caused Kurapika to cut the call on them.

Himeko lowered her head in guilt. "I'm sorry!"

"Well, there is nothing we can do about it now."

_"Then stop giving me the side eye!"_

"Why do you want him to teach you _Nen_?" Although they managed to fill Leorio in on most of the events that have occurred that day, there were still some things he wasn't completely aware of. Machi and Nobunaga were out in public to draw someone out; that much he had already figured out himself. They didn't want to draw out just about anyone, but a certain individual in particular. Gon and the others might have thought that they had the upper hand, but they would have never expected some of the other Phantom Troupe members to follow them. If anything, Kurapika's involvement in all of the events were all a mystery up until now, and it took some time for Gon and the others to figure it out, too. Leorio on the other hand still hasn't had a clue on what Kurapika had been doing over the past few days, and neither was he aware of the danger he was in.

"Kurapika learnt _Nen_ around the same time as us, so there should be something he knows that we don't." Killua explained, before spilling all the secrets Kurapika had kept to himself. From being part of the mafia, to the death of one of Uvogin, it all began to slowly make sense. Uvogin was mentioned to be the best arm wrestler among the Phantom Troupe, so for someone like Kurapika to be able to singlehandedly defeat him was quite the accomplishment. The Hunter exam was only a couple of months back, and during that time Killua was the strongest out of the five. Killua's assassin training gave him the necessary experience for the task they carried out that day, but that was no where near enough. Nobunaga alone was too strong for someone like Killua to take on by himself, and not even all three of their abilities combined could help them win against the samurai. Something significantly changed about Kurapika, something that Wing and the boys at the dojo didn't mention for whatever reason. "Kurapika knows something we don't. A technique that can make us strong enough to defeat experienced fighters, a way to grow stronger in a short period of time."

Leorio thought about it, before arguing that his strength could have just come from pure dedication and anger. Kurapika wasn't the strongest during the Hunter exam, but somehow his ability and strength increased when he was up against the prisoner in Trick Tower. He was smart enough to figure out that the prisoner was just a fraud, but the spider tattoo on his back still managed to anger him. However, Killua argued against his suggestion, pointing out that dedication alone would get him as far on its own. After fighting in Heaven's arena, Gon managed to enjoy a good fight. There was a sheer difference between someone who fought for the fun of it, and someone who fought just for the sake of it. Hisoka who found joy in getting stronger in order to fight and defeat stronger opponents was exhibit A in this argument. But even though Gon trained hard in order to land a punch on Hisoka, he was only able to land one single punch. The gap in ability was too great, but so was the gap in ability between Kurapika and the Phantom Troupe before he began to train. Something must have happened during that time. Whoever taught Kurapika must have taught him a technique no one else knew of.

As their conversation continued, Himeko began to yawn more and more. She wasn't able to follow the conversation anymore and just sat with the others for the sake of sitting there and being involved in the discussion. It wasn't very obvious at first, but after some time everyone started to take notice and gave her a couple of glances when she did so. As she said nothing about it, everyone else stayed quiet as well.

"Kou, are you tired?" Leorio finally asked. She looked completely out of it, as if she was trying to force herself to stay awake. Her participation in the conversation stopped too, and only Killua and Gon were updating the two elders on the day.

Himeko shook her head in response, "I'm okay, let's just keep talking."

"It's okay if you want to sleep. We're aware that you need more sleep than us," Leorio gave her a reassuring smile. It took a moment for Gon and Killua to realise what Leorio meant by that, but eventually they clocked on and agreed with Leorio's decision. It didn't surprise them at all; Leorio was aspiring to become a doctor, so it was only natural for him to remember such things. "Just leave the rest to us and we'll fill you in tomorrow morning."

Himeko was reluctant at first, thinking that she might miss out on a lot of important things. But Leorio was right, she couldn't process the discussion right now either, so it was pointless for her to stay awake. As soon as she understood that, she accepted the offer and stumbled her way towards her bed, where she shortly collapsed and fell fast asleep, much to everyone's surprise. She was obviously tired, but no one expected her to fall asleep at record time. Once they made sure that she was all tucked in, Leorio and Zepile took the opportunity to update the boys on anything related to the auction.

...

_On a cold winter day, the young Himeko was sat in one of the many studies in the Inoue estate, working through a math textbook. The room was fairly well lit, and although this was the smallest study in the whole mansion, it was still reasonably large. Despite the mansion being hundreds of years old, the large book shelves that took up most of the room did not have even one spec of dust on them. As it was smaller than the other study rooms, Himeko was the only one who used this one. Himeko herself looked a little more unusual that day than she did on any other days; it was most likely due to her clothes being fancier than usual. However, she wasn't the only one in the room. One of the maids was seated right beside the door and was told to watch over the little girl until she finished studying. _

_A while later, the door opened, and after seeing who was at the door, the maid rose from her seat immediately and bowed her head. Himeko, too put aside her book and stood up from her seat, waiting for the woman to make her way inside._

_The woman in her early thirties slowly walked towards her, with soft, graceful steps that were inaudible. She had a tall, slender figure, but despite being quite slim, she had a thin waist making her look curvy. Her jet black hair was neatly arranged into a bun, and her gold hair ornament matched the gold embroidery on her blue, silk gown. Due to the trademark black hair and sapphire blue eyes, she resembled Himeko quite a lot, a lot more than all her other relatives. There was also a kind smile on her face, but it only made Himeko feel more uneasy about the visit._

_Himeko's mother was very hard to read. Since Himeko was old enough to understand, she had been teaching her to avoid showing unsightly emotions such as anger, hatred and sorrow. A girl wasn't supposed to show such emotions according to her, as those could tarnish her image. Instead, she was always taught to have a small, but not overly exaggerated smile on her face. However, she despised seeing her mother with the same expression, knowing that it would be impossible to read what was on her mind at that moment. It was rare for her mother to disturb her while she was in her study, and even if she was to scold her, she would wait until she was done studying. For her to be there, she must have had an important reason, but Himeko just couldn't figure out what it was._

_"Himeko," her mother spoke in a very soft voice, yet it still managed to make her tense up. She couldn't help but feel anxious about the reason for her mother's visit, but all she could do was patiently wait for her mother to tell her. "__Your father wanted to have a talk to you."_

_It was a very strange time for her father to be requesting her presence, there was absolutely no reason for her father to want to talk to her. Her academic grades improved, and all her non academic related subjects had gotten better too. Himeko began spending a lot less time playing and more time doing what her parents wanted her to do. If anything, she was slowly, but steadily starting to become the girl her parents wanted her to be. Not just that, but her father barely had any time to have a normal family talk with his children. During the day, and sometimes during the night he was too busy with work within the clan as well as work outside the clan and only spent time with them on certain occasions. Himeko and Hakuryuu hardly had time to see their father, which was why their mother took control of raising them on both of their behalves. Compared to her though, Hakuryuu did see their father a lot more, but that too was regarding the clan as everyone knew that out of the two siblings Hakuryuu was going to become the next head._

_"Himeko, you're thinking too much!" Her mother impatiently pointed out, pulling the little girl out of her thoughts. _

_"I'm sorry," she lowered her head in response. After all, she was never given a choice to go and see her father, it was a direct order from him. There was nothing for her to think about in the first place. "I will go and see him now." The fact that her father found some time to speak to his daughter didn't change the fact that he was a busy man, and she knew her mother was just trying to remind her of that. _

_Once her mother has passed on the message, her job was done and she decided to leave the study. The maid standing by the door respectfully bowed her head once again while she left, while Himeko just waited for her mother to exit the room, so she could leave too. Her mother walked out, and the door to the study was closed again, and with the absence of her mother, Himeko felt like she could relax her again. Her tensed up shoulders finally unstiffened, and she let out a sigh of relief knowing that her mother had nothing serious to tell her. After neatly tucking her chair into the desk, she decided to make her way out of the room as well. _

_"You don't have to come with me, I can go alone." she told her maid, who was just about to follow her out of the room. "I doubt I'll be gone for long anyway." __The maid nodded once, before waiting for the younger girl to exit the room. Once she left, the maid sat back down on her chair and waited for Himeko to return._

_The main hall was quite far from where Himeko's study was; it was on the other side of the mansion to be precise. Her father would usually be in there along with all the other important men in the clan, so naturally she assumed that she could find him in there as usual. It was quite a long way to the main hall, so she took the opportunity to look out of the windows while walking down the hallway. The weather had gotten much colder in the recent days, and there was even a small layer of snow covering the ground. After seeing the large, frozen pond, Himeko started to wonder how the fish were doing, hoping that the cold weather wasn't doing them too much harm. As she hardly got the opportunity to go out in the cold, she never really knew how it felt like. Having to stay inside the mansion most of the time, she could only feel warm and protected. Not even her cousins were allowed to play outside in the cold, so somehow she felt like it wasn't as unfair as it usually was. __With there being a thin layer of snow outside on their courtyard, she could only begin to imagine what it looked like outside the first wall. With only field after field of crops, flowers, large trees, and a cute little village just for the servants, she imagined the snow covered landscape just as she had seen in a picture book. _

_As she continued to wander through the mansion, she ended up passing by some of her relatives who just smiled and kept moving, until she finally ended up by the large, double door, guarded by two of the Inoue clan's guards. The two tall men were already waiting for her arrival, and upon arrival, they pulled on the two golden door handles to open the two doors. She entered the main hall, and soon the door behind her shut close._

_To her surprise, the large room was empty. Her father was the only person inside, and none of her the other clan members were to be seen. The main hall acted a little like the throne room, yet it was simple and rather traditional just like the rest of the mansion. The floors were hard, dark brown wood, but as it was winter time, the normally cold floor felt nice and warm due to the heating. There was a seat for the head of the clan to sit down at the very end of the room. It wasn't too often for her father to be in the room alone; if anything she expected there to be a few other family members around. However, despite it only being her father, she swallowed the large lump stuck in her throat before proceeding to speak.__ "Father, did you want to see me?"_

_Hearing her soft, timid voice, her father Hachirou looked up, and upon seeing her he put away the scroll her was in the middle of reading. "Yes, I did." He answered her, gently patting the spot next to him, wanting her to sit beside him. Himeko slowly walked towards him, and sat down next to the much taller man. He too had the two traits passed down their noble family bloodline; jet black hair and sapphire blue eyes. You could say that her brother Hakuryuu was a splitting image of him, although he was much taller than Hakuryuu whom she already considered pretty tall for his age. His arms were muscular, but not too bulky due to all the physical training he went through since his childhood. In comparison to Hakuryuu's messy and unmanageable black hair, his was a lot more tidy and controllable, and it was slicked back to keep in place._

_Himeko looked at her father as if she had never seen before, and questioned his reasons for summoning her shortly after. "What did you want to see me about?" _

_"It's your birthday today, is it not?" He asked her with a gentle smile. "Your mother reminded me earlier this morning, so I thought I'd make some time for the little princess on her birthday."_

_Himeko immediately felt a sense of relief after hearing his words, exhaling ever so slightly to release her earlier nervousness. She wasn't in any sort of trouble, and neither was her father going to tell her to study harder than she already was. Although it was her birthday, her parents usually never made a big deal out of it. Birthdays in the clan were usually celebrated with a banquet at dinner time, and she expected exactly that to happen to her. Of course her parents weren't cold-hearted enough to not give her any presents either; it was actually the opposite, her father would shower his only daughter in gifts he personally picked out for her. She never questioned their affection towards her, and the only times she did it was out of frustration. Her mother was strict, but it was for her children's good, while her father was hardly around, but would show his affection through presents. _

_But there were times where she felt as if they were putting the clan in front of their own children, it was just a feeling she couldn't shake off. Hakuryuu already grew aware of this years ago and wanted his sister to realise it herself. However, despite all the materialistic affection the pair was receiving, they both agreed that those things only granted them temporary joy and left them craving for more attention as time went by. _

_She didn't know what it was, but it wasn't too often that her father would speak to her about anything other than the clan. That short period of confusion suddenly changed into excitement she almost couldn't control. Instead, that small smile grew much bigger as she tried her best to control this excitement, but she couldn't do much to suppress it. However, that excitement was short-lived when her father asked the next question. __"So, how old are you turning today?"_

_Hearing this, the little Himeko couldn't help but lower her head, as she mumbled her answer in disappointment, "Seven. I turned seven today." She emphasised the fact that she had turned seven quite clearly, and though it was somewhat childish, she wanted to engrave it into his head so he wouldn't forget again. Her voice sounded frustrated, and he couldn't really blame her for that either. _

_"I'm truly sorry, Himeko. Lately, I haven't even had much time to have a good nights sleep, but that doesn't mean that I don't care about you. I'm sure you're smart enough to understand."_

_"Yes, I understand."_

_"How about we talk about something else then?" It was an obvious attempt to change the subject, but as he was feeling truly guilty after seeing his daughter's expression and was hoping to redeem himself by doing this. "Lately your mother has been complaining about your interest in non-academic books."_

_At this point, she was starting to grow a little worried. It was no surprise that the news traveled from her mother to her father, it was bound to happen sooner or later, but she never really thought of any excuses. She was trying her best to think of a way to convince him that there was no harm in her doing so. Although her mother thought of fictional books as a waste of time, Himeko used it as a way of experiencing everything that was beyond the Inoue clan. She was waiting for him to tell her to stop reading anything that didn't have any educational content, but he didn't. Instead, he just began to laugh wholeheartedly at her confused expression._

_"Don't worry, I'm not going to tell you to stop. Hakuryuu might take after me in terms of looks, but you sure got my curiosity. Why don't you tell me about a few things you've been reading about?"_

_In a way, Himeko felt flattered being told that she took after one of her father's traits; after all, he was the great leader of the Inoue clan whom everyone respected. Someone as serious as him was the last person she expected to be fascinated about things that didn't matter to the clan. Apart from looks, there weren't that many personality traits she had inherited from her parents at all. Both were relatively serious, and although her brother was playful as a child, he was on par with their parents now. It made her wonder whether she was just going through a phase that she'd eventually grow out of. But that didn't stop her from talking about all the amazing things she read in books.__ Life beyond the walls was a mystery to most of the members of the clan, but that just made them a lot more curious to what was beyond them. There wasn't many sources about the world outside, and most of the clan members were simply not allowed to read books about the outside world. It was done to prevent anyone from becoming too curious about what lay outside. _

_However, that didn't stop Himeko's curiosity. _Wide, blue oceans, tall mountains, skyscrapers, deserts, she spoke about everything that fascinated her about the outside world. There were all kinds of creatures lurking outside that she could never imagine. There were people of all different origins who looked completely different to everyone in the clan. The world was a lot bigger than they could imagine._ Her mother didn't like the fact that she was wasting time with fictional novels written by people outside the clan and books about the outside world, but it was actually her father who told her mother to just let her read what she wanted for now. It did count as increasing her knowledge after all. Besides, she was still quite young, so he believed that there will be a time where she would just lose all interest and become more serious. He just trusted his daughter to just abandon her interest sooner or later, but for now he was just going to let her do what she liked. _

_Whilst she was talking, her father began to engage more in the conversation. From merely asking a couple of questions, he decided to add things to her story that he had seen firsthand during his travels. The two way conversation was a lot more lively, and both parties felt like this was a typical father-daughter conversation._

_"I once read that people over there put candles on their birthday cakes, and then they make a wish before blowing them out." Neither the cake nor the candles interested her, it was just that something so simple was able to give people hope and satisfaction, whether the wish came true or not. "They do the same thing when they see a shooting star. Don't you think that's an interesting assumption they are making?" _

_In her world where money could pretty much buy her anything, simple things such as those sounded magical. They didn't need to buy a lucky stone to fulfill their wishes, neither did they need to buy whatever they wished for. It just made her imagine the kinds of gullible and naive, yet kind people whom she would never ever meet. _

_"A wish?" Her father began to laugh once again out of pure amusement. Himeko did end up reminding him more and more of himself as a child, seeing how something so small was able to fascinate her. __"You are my child, you don't need to blow out a couple of candles to get what you want. Just tell your father what your heart desires! Is it the world's finest jewels? Clothes? A mansion? Whatever you want, your father and your clan is here to fulfill it for you."_

_"Then can you take me outside the walls?" _

_Himeko knew the answer, but she still asked. Her father promised her anything she wanted, but she knew how easily that promise could be broken._

_"You see, your brother might be the one who is going to become heir, and you might think he's smarter than you, but I was just like you when I was younger. I was curious, just like you!" He told, but his tone became more serious. "There is a fine line you should draw between your dreams and reality, just so you don't end up disappointed when you actually set out into the outside world."_

_"But-"_

_"No but's Himeko!"_

_Himeko took the opportunity to ask despite knowing the answer, and with that, her interest in continuing the conversation just faded. Her father tried to continue the conversation, but eventually he gave up after only getting one word answers in return. Soon, Himeko was allowed to go back to her room, and she made her way down the same hallway to the other side of the mansion where she was studying. She honestly didn't know why she's become moody, her request was unreasonable to begin with so she shouldn't be surprised by his answer. Yet, she felt let down by her father._

_In the evening, Himeko was changed into a new set of clothing and jewellery before being escorted to the banquet hall. In contrast to how it should be, there was a foul mood between her parents and her brother. It was as if everyone except for the two siblings were enjoying themselves. In the dining hall, she was seated between her father and her older brother, both sides being frighteningly silent. _

_"Aren't enjoying yourself, Himeko?" Her father asked. "Is the food not to your liking? I can arrange something else to suit your taste more."_

_"No, the food is good. It feels great to be together as a family."_

_"I've thought about our conversation earlier on, so I decided to get you a little present." After he finished his sentence, two servants brought in a three tier birthday cake with lit candles inside the hall and placed it in front of Himeko. Everyone seemed to stare at the cake in surprise; although cake was always served at birthday banquets, it was never served with lit candles on top. Himeko couldn't remove her gaze from the seven candles arranged on the top tier of the cake. "Go on, make a wish."_

_Himeko's relatives waited for her to blow out the candles before making a wish and then started clapping, congratulating her for turning a year older. Hoping that maybe this wish might come true, she wished to be able to explore the outside world some day. Candles on a cake wasn't something she expected, and it wasn't something she wanted either. She just said it in the spur of the moment, not knowing what else to tell father. However, this time around she was somewhat grateful to have received such an opportunity. Although her actual wish didn't come true, the feeling she got after spending a moment in silence, making a wish before blowing out the candles was enough to satisfy her for now. _

_"Thank you, father!" _

_"That's not all! __I know you like books, so I picked out one myself." He said before handing her a book. _

_She looked at the cover of the book. 'The Little Mermaid' by Hans Christian Anderson.__"Can I read it tonight?" _

_"Why not?" He smiled back at her. _

_Himeko couldn't take her eyes of the beautiful art of the mermaid on the book cover, and as a conversation starter, she showed the book to her brother who was sitting to her left. "Look, father gave me a new book!"_

_However, he couldn't share her excitement at all and ended up giving her a short answer before turning back to his plate. "I see," he said, but he wasn't done yet. "Also, congratulations on turning seven." __Himeko nodded politely, before thanking him for his birthday wishes. It was awkward, and overly polite, yet she appreciated the fact that he remembered how old she really was._

_It wasn't too long before the banquet finished, and pretty much all the children were taken back to their rooms, including Himeko. In her case though, she just wanted to read the book she received, so it didn't bother her at all. In the end, only the adults were left to continue and drink a few shots of alcohol together. _

_With Himeko finally gone, her mother decided to give her husband a piece of her mind. __"You always spoil her, she won't learn if you keep being so soft on her." She began to complain. "She will have to bear the clan on her shoulders in a few years."_

_"She is my daughter, and I trust her." He said with full confidence. "She will lose interest in the outside world sooner or later. __Have some faith in me, I'm the head of this clan after all." He tried to calm her down before turning to his son, who was still sitting there, listening into their conversation.__"Did you enjoy yourself today, Hakuryuu?"_

_In response, __Hakuryuu stood up from his seat and was ready to leave the dining room. "I'll excuse myself, I've got some work to catch up with." _

_After seeing hearing his son's reply, he turned to his wife in confusion, wondering why he deserved such a cold shoulder. "Did I do something to upset him?"_

_In response, his wife merely poured some sake into his cup before pouring some into hers, "Their father is too busy for them, of course they'll be upset," she then proceeded to drink the alcohol from the white, ceramic cup._

_With the banquet being over, the adults slowly made their way to their respective rooms. Most of the younger children were already in bed, if not majority were already in their rooms preparing to go to sleep. Hakuryuu wasn't able to concentrate, so he decided to take a walk through the courtyard, while Himeko who was supposed to be asleep was still reading her book. After arriving at her room, she got her maids to change her out of her clothes and asked them to prepare a freshly washed futon. With just one dim light illuminating the room, she continued to read the book while one of her maids watched over her, waiting for her to fall asleep._

_It was exciting to read the kind of book her father specially picked out for her, and so far she was in fact enjoying it. She didn't know what it was about the story, it just felt so familiar to her. A relatable was always a good start, and in the first couple of chapters she noticed how the little mermaid was just like her. She was just a curious girl who was discouraged from pursuing her interest in the human world. At the age of fifteen though, she was allowed to visit the surface, and her fascination for the human world deepened. After rescuing a young man who was thrown off his ship during a wild storm, she rescued him and found herself falling head over heels for him. After trading her beautiful singing voice for a pair of human legs, she set foot onto the unknown land to pursue her dreams. __Ironically, she found herself in a similar position as her, but she didn't have a beautiful voice, or anything special for that matter she could trade for her freedom. At first she seemed quite happy with her sacrifice, thinking that it wasn't much to give up for her beloved prince, yet her voice was what held her back throughout the story._

_ The story grew more frustrating every chapter, and Himeko seriously wished she could just tell the prince who she really was. At one point, it grew frustrating to the point where she wanted to stop reading, but after reading for so long, she felt as if it was a waste not to know the ending. Besides, she was starting to grow quite curious of how this was going to end, and whether she was going to be rewarded for all her hardships. There were usually many versions of fairy tales, and the original versions were often quite heartbreaking, yet Himeko knew that there were some alternative newer versions with happier endings. At the end of the day, she just wanted to know the book's ending regardless of the outcome._

_It took a couple of hours for her to actually finish the book, and unfortunately, the main character couldn't make it. The prince met another princess, and he swore to marry her. With only a few days left to live, her sisters traded their silky, long hair for a dagger, and the little mermaid was allowed to return to the sea if she killed the prince and bathed her feet in his blood. Himeko wasn't surprised to see that she couldn't bring herself to kill the love of her life, and the story ended with the mermaid returning to the sea and turning into sea foam._

_There were a couple of things that took her a while to process. She was frustrated that the mermaid couldn't express herself, and she was furious at the prince for not noticing her feelings. In the end, everything was in vain, from her own sacrifice to her sisters' sacrifices. Maybe she was just too immature and curious for her own good, maybe she wasn't the brightest bulb out of the bunch, or maybe trying to venture out like that was a bad idea to begin with. The previously inspiring mermaid princess seemed ignorant and self centered, leaving her kingdom with no notice and making her family worry. But what disturbed her the most was how much she resembled this fictional character. It was just a book, yet it got her to think about everything in a different perspective, and that made her feel uneasy._

_Still in daze, her maid was the one to snap her out of her thoughts. "Ojou-sama, you should get some rest."_

_Himeko obediently set her book aside, "Can you please take this book and put it on one of the shelves in my study?"_

_"Of course, I'll do that once you've fallen asleep."  
_

...

In the middle of the night, Himeko's eyes shot open as she anxiously looked around her surrounding to know her exact location. She wasn't sleeping in the large, fluffy white futon in the traditional japanese room any longer. Instead, she was in a western style hotel room, sleeping on a comfortable single bed. It took her a moment to absorb everything, and once she saw how much larger her body was, she managed to draw a fine line between her dream and reality. She wondered why she had to have yet another dream about her deceased clan members. She couldn't even consider it a dream, or a nightmare, but a memory of her former self.

For some reason, although her hands were still shaking, her lips couldn't help but form a smile. It had been quite long since she's seen the faces of her family members, and neither did she have any sort of photograph to remind her of them. Until this day, her own mirror image served as a reminder of how her fellow Inoue's looked like; pale skin and contrasting jet black hair, along with deep blue eyes. The feeling of at least seeing them again in her dreams set her heart at ease, however, she couldn't help but feel alone and vulnerable knowing that only one of them, other than herself is still alive.

It didn't take too long for her to get control over herself. Soon, her hands stopped shaking, and the goosebumps covering her body were long gone. She took a moment to look around the dark room, lit up by only the city lights. It was nearly three in the morning, and she wasn't surprised to see everyone else in the room passed out. It really had been a long day for them all, and seeing even Killua deep asleep made it pretty evident. The room was nice and peaceful, and with so many people around her all the time she almost missed how quiet her life was. There was always this eerie silence surrounding her, but it always left her feeling pretty lonely. However there was something about it that made her feel at ease now, and she was able to enjoy one or two moments of silence as opposed to before. It truly only lasted a couple of seconds, and soon the room was filled with the sound of Leorio's snoring, but Himeko didn't seem to mind at all.

She stretched her arms whilst still in bed, before setting the milky white bed cover aside. After climbing out of bed, she quietly made her way towards the little lounging area by the large window near the front door. The boys weren't going to wake up any time soon, but she couldn't fall asleep either. On the way, she picked up an unopened bar of chocolate she found sitting on a table, before settling down on one of the red coloured sofas. Whilst staring outside, she unwrapped the chocolate bar and put a piece in her mouth, waiting for it to slowly melt. Yorknew was a lot different from Kioto, where she recently settled down. The city was still alive despite it being so late, and she could spot cars driving past the building.

"Kou?" She was approached by Gon, who seemed to be awake too. His hushed voice was still able to snap her out of her thoughts, and she stared at him until he sat down in the seat opposite her. "What are you doing up so late?"

"I should ask you the same question," she replied, surprised to see that she wasn't the only one who couldn't fall asleep again. "I had a dream about my clan, but once I woke up I couldn't fall back asleep."

"I was worried about Kurapika, so I couldn't fall asleep." He answered. "I envy you though, you are able to fall asleep no matter how bad the situation was. I wish I could do that."

"Gon, are you insulting me?"

"No, that was meant to be a compliment! It wasn't meant to be an insult!"

"Gon, do we mind if we talked for a little?" Himeko's voice suddenly sounded a little shaky, though she looked just fine to him until now. But she had a dream about her clan, so Gon couldn't begin to imagine the mixture of emotions she was feeling. There was something about her that he had always hated, and it was her unwillingness to ask for help. There were countless of times when she simply dodged a question she didn't want to answer, or just told them straight up that she won't answer it.

"I'll listen."

Himeko broke of a large piece of chocolate to pass over to Gon before she began to speak. Her thoughts were in no specific order, and her emotions were all over the place, so it took some time for her to tell him the whole story. She didn't know what Gon was going to think of it; maybe he'd think of Himeko as the selfish and spoilt one. The story started off from when she just talked to her father, and now that she carefully analysed the situation, she felt like the morel of the fairy tale was something her father wanted her to know. Her seven year old self was quite naive, and she couldn't really blame herself either. For all those years she was being spoon-fed, and pretty much given everything on a silver plate. As much as she tried to play the perfect little daughter, there was no denying that she was still just a little girl.

As stupid as it may sound now, maybe her father was just trying to indirectly warn her of the consequences. There weren't many times where he could say no directly to her face, and when he did, it always ended up with the little Himeko in tears. The little mermaid paid a price for her freedom, but in the end she couldn't find the happiness she yearned for. She was just a selfish little girl who overestimated herself, and underestimated the world around her, and as mean as it sounded, she could draw parallels between her younger self and the little mermaid. In the end, even she had to sacrifice her previous life in order to live a new life that wasn't able to grant her much happiness.

Gon felt as if she started to take the blame herself. She neither killed, nor wished death upon the Inoue clan, yet she suddenly began to feel partly responsible for it. There were many things he wished for as a child himself, and becoming a Hunter to venture beyond Whale island was one of many. Himeko was smart, but he thought of her as pretty stupid for believing in something so dumb.

"It wasn't your fault, neither you nor your wish to see what was beyond your estate killed your family." Once he interrupted, Himeko paused her endless rambling and self-blaming. "I always wanted to become a Hunter, but whenever I asked aunt Mito, she just wouldn't allow me." Gon understood her desperate she must have felt, but he felt like everyone felt like that at some point in their lives. Aunt Mito was someone he thought of as his own mother, and he will continue thinking of her his one and only mother. When neither of his parents were there, it was her who raised him to the person he was now. His grandmother was never against his dream, but he slowly became to understand why aunt Mito didn't allow him to leave.

"She probably saw your father in you," Himeko said. "Your father never returned after he left, and she didn't want to lose you too. I think I can understand her."

"But it's the same thing with your dad!" Gon pointed out. "He thought of you as someone too precious to lose."

Gon had a fair point. Child kidnapping, human trafficking, she wasn't a stranger to those words. The likelihood of a rich child being kidnapped and held hostage for ransom money was quite high, and now that she thought about it, maybe her father just didn't want that happening to her.

Gon saw her reflect. Now that she was old enough to fully understand certain situations more than she did in the past, he knew Himeko would calm down. There it was again, that comforting silence. Thinking back again, her parents were pretty strict, but she herself was an unreasonable child. She felt somewhat grateful knowing how much they really looked out for her, but knowing that she could never tell them how thankful she was, she bit her lip as she tried to control her tears. However, it was no use, and her vision went blurry as tears started to stream down her cheeks. Gon sat still, knowing that silence was the best way to comfort her, and with only him around, she felt safe enough to cry. No one was going to laugh, no one was going to tell her to stop. This was going to stay between them, and Gon's lips were sealed.

Then suddenly, Gon remembered something. "By the way Kou, where did you find this chocolate bar?"

By now, Himeko had finally managed to calm down a little. She turned to point at the table near the flat screen TV. "On that table, why do you ask?"

"Oh, no real reason," this was quite an obvious lie, evident by the nervous chuckle Gon let out. "I just remembered Killua putting one of his chocolate bars on the table earlier."

Himeko gulped, _"Crap,"_ she thought. After looking at the remaining pieces, she began to force it down, wanting to leave no traces of it behind for Killua to see once he wakes up.

"What are you doing, Kou?!" Gon tried his best to talk in a quiet voice, knowing that Killua had the sharp senses of an eagle.

"I'm eating the evidence," she replied, before urging Gon to do the same. "Quick Gon, we have no time to lose!"

"I'm trying my best," he mumbled with his mouth full. Once the chocolate was all gone, Himeko made it her mission to temporarily hide the wrapper somewhere Killua wouldn't check until it was safe to relocate it. With the evidence safely destroyed, they managed to calm down again before receiving another shock. Gon's phone started ringing all of the sudden, and the vibration from his pocket made the two jump from their seats.

"Check who it is!"

Once Gon took out the phone, the two looked at the caller ID, only to be delighted to see who it was. "Kurapika!" Gon beamed as soon as he picked up the call. On the other line was the blonde teen, who was still caught up in the middle of an incident with the Phantom Troupe. In the background was loud, incoherent chatter, and the sound of police sirens.

"Gon, I want you to pass on a message to the rest. Half of the Phantom Troupe members were found dead, I'm at the scene. The forensics are getting the bodies examined and confirmed their identity."

That was quick, a little too quick for Himeko and Gon to absorb the news. They have just seen the Phantom Troupe healthy and well less than a day ago, and now they were found dead. They found it hard to believe at first, but seeing how even Kurapika confirmed the news, it must have been true. The news sounded too good to be true, but regardless of this, they felt somewhat relieved. There was a tone of disappointment in Kurapika's voice, possibly since he wanted to kill them with his own hands. Although only half of them were dead, amongst the corpses was that of Chrollo Lucifer. With their leaders corpse identified, Kurapika came to the conclusion that the Phantom Troupe will likely dissolve.

After both ends hung up, Gon rushed out of his seat and woke Killua and Leorio up, passing the message on to them. One was easier to wake up than the other, but the overwhelming news managed to completely wake both of them up. Whilst they were still in bed, Gon retold the story Kurapika had told him not too long ago. Killua was the first person to become slightly suspicious, especially since he out of all four of them knew how strong their leader must have been. Leorio on the other hand was much easier to convince than him. In the end, both of them had to completely believe the story after Kurapika saw the corpses with his own eyes.

Leorio was overjoyed, and made his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Killua's mind was put at ease, knowing that neither Gon, Himeko nor Kurapika will rush into something dangerous again. The sudden news did bug him however, but instead he tried to imagine how it must have been for Kurapika to find out. In contrast to Gon, Leorio and Himeko, he must have been confused when he found out. But at the end of the day, he felt a huge weight lifted off his shoulders. At this point, they weren't strong enough to help Kurapika fight the Phantom Troupe and would have just gotten in his way. Although Killua himself was physically a lot more skilled than Gon and Himeko, he knew that he would have slowed Kurapika down the most after remembering how he couldn't even get close to Nobunaga. He didn't even have the capability to talk Gon out of it, and Himeko and Leorio would have sided with him. None of them would have cared if they went down in flames, all three of them would have insisted that they'd stay behind and aid Kurapika.

_"I guess it's better for all of us this way. The only business Gon will have in mind now is the auction, and Leorio and Kou will stop worrying so much about Kurapika." _Killua roamed around the room deep in his own thoughts, waiting for Leorio to come out of the toilet. With the Phantom Troupe dead, he had one less thing to worry about, although part of him was still not satisfied with the news. But in the end, he managed to let go of it completely. It didn't matter who killed those monsters at this point, their involvement with the Phantom Troupe was cut off here. There was no point in him worrying any longer. "Hey, has anyone seen my chocolate bar?" Killua asked, now that his mind has cleared out all the important things. "I remember putting it on the table before going to sleep."

Gon and Himeko who were telling each other lame jokes stopped laughing and froze on the spot, before looking at each other. There was a moment of silence in the room as Killua was trying to look for any suspicious behaviour, while the other two were doing their best to avoid eye contact with him. The two just ended up ignoring him as Himeko continued telling another one of her dumb jokes. "Hey Gon, why should you never trust an atom?"

"I don't know, why?"

"Because they make up everything!" she answered, before the two cracked up into hysterical laughter, almost to the point where it was way too over-exaggerated.

Gon who didn't even understand the joke, laughed as he was just too nervous having Killua observe every single one of their movements. "Wait, I don't get the joke."

Himeko mentally face-palmed, asking herself why she had to tell a nerdy science joke out of all other jokes Gon would be able to understand. "By definition, an atom is the smallest unit of a chemical element. So in other words, everything on this planet is composed of atoms."

"Oh," thanks to her definition, he finally managed to understand the concept of the joke. "So, they make up everything, but in this joke, it refers to them as being liars." Now that Gon has understood the joke, he actually found the nerdy joke quite hilarious and clever. Himeko on the other hand did not share the laughter, since the long winded explanation just ruined the joke completely for her.

"You two are acting awfully suspicious," Killua pointed out, and he managed to get the response he was looking for. Gon stopped laughing yet again, whereas Himeko shoulders stiffened.

Gon turned over to her, before whispering something into her ear. He made sure that it was only loud enough for her to hear, "We should tell him."

"No way! Have you lost your mind?!" Himeko tried to keep her voice as quiet as possible, too. "He will eat us two up alive!"

"He won't, trust me!"

"I'm not going to trust you!"

"You should tell him, Kou."

"Why me?"

"You have good people skills. You are good at talking to people and sorting things out, you've done it for us a lot recently." Gon knew exactly what to say to her, but in this case flattery wasn't going to get him anywhere and he could tell. Himeko wasn't going to buy it, he could just tell from her raised brow. Her expression itself could be interpreted as _'really now? Is that the best excuse you have to offer?'. _"Well, you were the one who found it and convinced me to eat it."

"Don't make me sound like the serpent from_ Adam and Eve_!"

"Why, what did the serpent do?"

"That's not important right now!" Himeko's voice was starting to get louder out of frustration. "Besides, aren't you his best friend? We are still awkward around each other, so you should take responsibility as the eldest out of us two and talk to him. He will listen to you, he won't listen to my excuses."

"He will shout at me, Kou. Then he'll start arguing with me, and because we are in the wrong here I won't be able to argue back with him."

"He will have a go at me too if I told him. One word out of my mouth is enough to make him angry!"

"I will have your back, Kou. Take initiative as the smarter one!"

"I can look after my own back, so be a man and protect a lady from the vicious beast."

"You just contradicted yourself!"

"Okay, then let's do this instead!" Himeko managed to put a stop to their endless back and forth, before revealing what the best plan would be for her. "Let's just keep quiet about this until he finds out."

"I still think we should tell him."

"Stop being such a goody-goody, Gon. It was his fault for leaving it out like that without writing his name on it."

With that constant back and forth, Killua knew for sure they had something to do with the matter. If this was Himeko alone, she would have been able to lie to his face. But knowing that Gon was involved, she was getting more and more nervous by the minute, knowing that Gon was a bad liar. He decided to interrupt the pair, "What are you two whispering about?"

"Nothing at all, just something we discussed while you were asleep." Himeko answered almost immediately, before Gon could say anything. "I just had a really nostalgic dream about something that happened to me as a child, but I guess it's nothing you'd be interested in."

The story sounded believable enough. After all, there was a time where Himeko had a dream during the Hunter exam and she told him about it. He couldn't remember all the details of it, but he knew that him listening to her actually made her feel much better. However, Leorio ended up saving the pair. "What are you all waiting for? Let's go and relax today. We've been too caught up with the whole auction and Phantom Troupe fiasco that we didn't get any peace over the past couple of days." Leorio suggested, and of course, everyone liked the idea of getting a day off from everything.

Before he could even ask the trio where they would like to go, Himeko already had a suggestion in mind. "Can you take us to the park then?"

"How old are you?" Killua asked, rolling his eyes, but she just ignored his comment.

"It's a really popular filming location! Pretty please?" She pleaded, as she looked up at Leorio with puppy eyes she had somehow managed to learn from Gon just by observation.

Leorio didn't really have a plan in mind himself, and neither did Gon or Killua. The weather was quite nice as well, and he spent a whole day indoors, trying to collect information on both the auction and the Phantom Troupe. Some fresh air sounded like a good plan. "Sure, why not?"

"Okay, Leorio is taking us to the park," she announced to the only two other people in the large room. "And he is buying us a lot of food, too!"

"Wait, I never agre-."

Before Leorio could even finish his sentence, Gon managed to cut him off. "Thanks, Leorio!"

"Yeah," Killua added, "Thanks, old man!"

"You brat!"

Killua ignored his comment before entering the bathroom to get ready. The plan for the day had been settled, although Leorio wasn't fully satisfied with it. But nonetheless, he didn't mind treating the trio to some street food. Maybe he felt like they deserved a break from all the running around lately, or maybe he was just overjoyed after hearing the news from Kurapika. Either way, he decided to let it slide just this once.

Whilst waiting for Killua, Himeko and Gon were still talking about Kurapika, wondering where he might be, and what he could be doing right now. He got a job in order to get a step closer to the Phantom Troupe, so will he decide to resign? If he did end up leaving his job, he could finally get some time to meet up with the rest. Though Leorio didn't take part in the conversation, he did listen to them. They sounded very eager to meet Kurapika after all the months they've been away, and the fact that he had gotten strong enough to beat the physically strongest Phantom member made them even more curious. Himeko even pointed out that the slim Kurapika they remembered from the Hunter exam could have gotten a lot more muscular over the months, and tried not to drool at the thought of it.

Leorio quietly scanned through the few messages he got on his phone, although most of them were just promotional offers. There was one text message from Zepile regarding the auction, so he decided to reply to that. While waiting for Himeko and Gon to get changed, he also managed to send Kurapika a text message, hoping he would join them later on the day. At first he was going to tell the others about it, but then he thought it would be a nice surprise.

Meanwhile, Killua was busy trying to find clues on his missing chocolate bar, occasionally eyeing his two friends, whom were also his prime suspects in this case. There weren't that many things that would get Killua this serious. Majority of the time he just viewed life as one big game and often played around, but to him, this was a very serious matter. All the possible evidence was gone; there were no wrappers left behind, and neither did the two leave behind any leftovers. The chocolate itself must have been eaten, and the wrappers couldn't be found in any of the room's bins either. They wouldn't have flushed it down the toilet either, knowing it could potentially clog the toilet. Neither did the two have any opportunity to dispose of it outside the room. In other words, the culprits must still have that piece of evidence with them, and knowing Himeko, she must have temporarily placed it somewhere he would never guess; or rather never dare to look.

"Killua, what are you staring into space for?" Gon pulled him out of his thoughts. "Let's go!"

Leorio took the three to the nearby park, before buying them a mass amount of food; mainly street food from nearby food vendors. Although he ended up agreeing to buy them everything they wanted, he couldn't help but sigh every time he was forced to take out another note from his wallet. During that time, Gon, Himeko and Killua had to patiently wait in the park for Leorio to finish buying them everything on their long list. Killua let out a loud yawn, trying to point out the extent of his boredom. Himeko stared at Leorio's distant figure, hoping he wouldn't forget to buy the ever so famous Yorkshin-style pepperoni pizza. Unlike the other two, Gon was trying his best to find something to do whilst waiting. After some thought, he finally remembered something.

"Kou, you promised to teach me how to use a sword!" He exclaimed, surprising his two friends who were both in their own worlds. It only took a couple of seconds for Killua to yawn again, hoping it would get his point across on how boring Gon's idea sounded. Himeko on the other hand was still taken back by the sudden request, before she remembered him requesting the same thing yesterday. She blinked a couple of times, trying process everything, but then she remembered that she did promise to teach Gon some swordsmanship after the whole Phantom Troupe drama was over.

Thankfully, Himeko did end up bringing her katana with her. She stood up and announced the start of her private lesson, "Okay, let's begin Himeko's super special swordsmanship lesson! I'll be your mentor for today, Himeko Inoue, but I shall be addressed as Sensei Kou." Although it was Gon who was all hyped up about this, Himeko managed to top his excitement as she proudly showed off the katana she received from Natsume at the end of her training.

_"Oh boy,"_ Killua mentally face-palmed at what Gon's innocent little request is slowly turning into. Gon, too, looked a little taken back by his overly enthusiastic teacher.

"So, when you use a sword, you have to remember your posture. Make sure to grip the hilt tightly, and stand firmly on the ground, too." Himeko tried to explain it in the best way possible, hoping it would be a good enough explanation for someone like Gon to understand. But then she remembered that Gon was Gon, and it wasn't easy for her to just explain something to him. "Actually, forget what I said. I'll just demonstrate, so make sure to keep an eye on my posture. Killua, try throwing something my way. And by my way I mean towards me and not at me!"

Killua sighed, and as there was still no sign of Leorio, he decided to join the two. He looked around the floor and picked up a couple of rocks that were suitable for this kind of activity. They couldn't be too small, and it would be better for them to be a little flat, too. After he picked up a handful, he proceeded to throw them her way. Himeko managed to slice them all in halves with ease, and since Killua took this as a challenge, he picked up the speed at which he threw the stones at. Not matter how fast he was throwing them, at this point she was good enough to cut them all.

"Is that all you can do, kid?" Himeko mimicked the voice of an old dojo master, hoping the provoke Killua even further. Killua began to look around for anything else he could potentially throw at her to shatter her ego, until a much larger, heavier rock caught his eyes. "Stop slacking off, brat!"

But not even the larger rock could faze her as she effortlessly cut it into much smaller bits. Gon was standing on the side, showering her with applause, and he wasn't the only one. The scene had certainly caught some attention from some other by-passers, as they also stopped to watch and gave her a round of applause once she was done. Himeko grinned proudly, before thanking her audience for the applause, and once she was done, the crowd dispersed.

Himeko passed her katana over to Gon, who was eagerly waiting to give it a go. "Can I really try?"

"Yeah, go ahead. You wanted to try it anyway, and I decided to demonstrate it because you hardly ever listen to explanations." Gon took that insult as a shot to his heart as he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. He couldn't exactly deny her point though as she was telling the truth. "Either way, just give it a go!"

Just like Himeko instructed, Gon firmly gripped onto the sword and buried his feet into the ground, ready to slice whatever Killua threw at him. He did a good job for a beginner in her opinion, and managed to slice a good few stones that were thrown at him, but some were reflected by the blade.

"Aw, I missed!"

"You are getting there. Cutting rocks with a sword is hard, so it's amazing to think that you only missed a couple of times," she gave him a compliment to encourage him. She wasn't too good at the beginning either, so she could relate to him quite a lot. There were quite a lot of times where she said _'aw, I missed'_ herself in the past, but with her training she was thrown in the deep end. Training with Natsume was never easy, and no matter how good she got he hardly ever took a moment to give her words of words of encouragement.

"Really?!" He beamed, hearing her words of encouragement, before turning to Killua who seemed bored as usual. "You try it too, Killua!"

"No, I think I'll pass on your offer."

"Don't mind him, Gon, he probably doesn't want to embarrass himself in front of us. How about I show you something awesome? You see, there's a advance _Nen_ technique called _Shu_ which I managed to pick up by myself. I'm not really good at it just yet, but I can still use it."

"Advance _Nen_ techniques?" The two boys asked in slight confusion. All they remembered being taught by Wing were the basics, so it was hard for them to believe that Wing missed something out that Himeko's mentors taught her.

"Well, I haven't been taught it just yet," she pointed out, and this seemed to relieve the Gon and Killua a little. "Well, on the last day at the dojo when I practiced with my sword I accidentally cut my teacher's sword. He said it was _Shu, _an advanced version of _Ren. _I kinda ended up panicking like you too at first, but he told me not worry too much. If you practice the basics, you will be able to pick up on those easily. I only know _Shu_ so far anyway, because I can use it when I use my katana. Speaking of swords, I was going to show you something cool since Killua chickened out, right?"

Hearing this, Killua dropped the rocks he was holding on the floor and walked to Gon, taking Himeko's katana out of his hand. "Go ahead then!"

"Now, remember what I taught you!" Himeko reminded him, watching him get into position.

"Yeah, yeah. Just throw the rocks already," Killua said confidently. His carefree face annoyed Himeko, especially since he seemingly had no experience handling a sword. As far as she knew, he never mentioned being able to use weaponry, neither did he look like someone who was taught how to use them. Killua could rip someone's heart out with just his bare hands; his fingernails could be considered as sharp as a sword.

"Be careful! Don't say I didn't warn you." However, as soon as she started throwing, he effortlessly sliced each flat stone into two. Although she kept throwing more and more his way, he managed not to miss even a single stone so far. "_He is good, much better than I was when I first started." _While being stuck deep in thoughts, she accidentally aimed a small rock at his head.

"Ouch!" He winced in pain after the rock hit him on his forehead. "Watch where you're throwing!"

"Ah, sorry!" Just then, Leorio returned with many bags filled with food. "Let's just forget sword practice, I'm hungry!"

Himeko slowly made her way to Leorio and helped him with the food bags. Gon and Killua watched her before they shrugged and made their way to help Leorio as well. However, after he delivered the food, he left the kids since he received a call from Zepile regarding the auctions. That left the three kids alone to eat all the food he brought.

Himeko who looked a little out of this world received a pat on the back from Gon. "Don't worry, the same thing happened when I taught him to use my fishing rod," he sighed, after remembering the time on Whale island. "He catches on fast!"

"I know right? That's so frustrating, especially since I worked so hard to become better at something you two couldn't do!"

"That's a little harsh, Kou. That shouldn't be your motivation to work hard either."

"But you know how it feels to have your spotlight taken from you by a beginner."

Himeko and Gon took a glance of the unsuspecting Killua, who was about to dig in without them and was caught. "What?" He asked. "I just didn't want the food to get cold before we started eating!" He lied, and Gon and Himeko were about to join him. The pair were about to reach out for some food, before being interrupted by Killua who still had some interrogation to do. "As you two may know, my chocolate bar went missing overnight, and you two are the prime suspects!"

"Why are you bringing this up now when we are about to eat?" Himeko questioned, before trying to change to subject. "And why us? What about Leorio?"

"You were the only ones awake!"

"Well, he could have eaten it while sleepwalking," Himeko pointed out.

"Hm.." Killua gave it some thought, running the scenario in his head. "You have a point, anything is possible with him!" When he started to consider that possibility, Himeko and Gon were able to relax a little and flashed a nervous grin when Killua looked back up at them again. "But you two aren't out of the clear either, unless you have an alibi."

Himeko put her hand up immediately, after seemingly having found an alibi for herself. "I've got one, I'm allergic to chocolate!"

"You've been eating chocolate filled pastries and drinking hot chocolate over the past few days, and you are telling me to believe you?"

That was when she remembered, and although her alibi got busted, she still went ahead with the act and began to scratch her arms. "Look, I think it's a delayed reaction. It's not too unusual considering that my body reacts slowly to poisons, too."

Killua sighed in frustration, seeing how she had an answer for all of his question. He decided to change his target to the nervous Gon. "What about you Gon, what's your alibi?" Just then, Gon glanced over Killua's shoulder for Himeko's help, but all she did was form a big 'X' sign with her arms, telling Gon to keep quiet or feign ignorance. Killua noticed the movement of Gon's eyes, and knowing that Himeko who was sitting behind him could be giving him signals. He turned around, only to see her hands up in the air. They both froze. "What are you trying to do?"

"Nothing," she lied, before she stretched her arms out even further, "Just morning stretches. They'll help me grow."

After giving her a glare, he turned back to Gon before repeating his question. "Do you have an alibi, Gon?"

"What's an alibi, Killua?" Gon asked, feigning ignorance, to which Killua could only face-palm.

"You know what, just tell me which chocolate bar you want, and I'll buy it for you," Himeko suggested, trying to change the topic yet again. "Let's just assume that the chocolate bar grew legs and ran away to avoid being eaten by you. The chocolate bar deserves freedom as well, freedom of not being eaten by a brat like you! Besides, our food is getting cold, so let's dig in."

"Yes, let's just forget about it for now," Gon added. "We'll buy you another chocolate bar, okay?"

Himeko was the first one to reach out to a pizza slice and started eating, followed by Gon, who was also trying his best to cover up their tracks. Killua eventually joined them, knowing there won't be any food left for him if he were to waste time thinking about the chocolate bar incident. He decided to eat first and deal with the two culprits later, as he knew exactly who did it. The trio was eating the food at lightening speed; well the two boys just shoved as much as they could eat in their mouths, while Himeko tried to act a bit more civilised by taking a couple of breaks by chewing and swallowing the food in her mouth. What started off as a nice brunch ended up as an eating contest between the three.

At one point, Gon looked up and he suddenly stopped chewing. "Puahpika!" He exclaimed, as he spat the food he had in his mouth all over Killua's face, who happened to sit right in front of Gon. Hearing Kurapika's name being mentioned, Himeko immediately looked up, and when she saw Kurapika standing just a few of metres behind Killua, she spat her juice out on Killua's face, too.

Killua spent some time sitting still, feeling the warm grease of the food flowing down his face, which was cooled off by the chilled orange juice trickling down his cheeks. He then proceeded to push some of the food that was in front of them towards the pair. "Here, why don't you chew on this and spit that all over my face, too while you're at it?"

Gon and Himeko ignored Killua's dilemma, and instead, they spent a moment staring at Kurapika, who was waiting for them to greet them. The two then pinched each other's cheeks, to double check whether this wasn't a dream.

"Does your cheek hurt?" Himeko asked Gon, her eyes not leaving Kurapika's eyes once.

"Yeah, yours?"

"It hurts a lot. Next time, don't pinch them this hard." After realising that this was not a dream after all, the pair looked at each other and let out a big smile. Kurapika smiled at them gently, and watched the two stand up and rush up to him, taken back by the speed at which they were headed his way. Himeko came first and greeted him with a tight embrace, which caught Kurapika off guard at first. Gon looked for a way around her, wanting to give Kurapika a warm greeting, too. Meanwhile, Killua watched the scene whilst stuffing his face with some junk food, waiting for everything to settle down so he could make his entrance.

* * *

_**Review Corner**_

**_Arcana the wolf - _**(I don't know if I told you yet, but I love your username lol) - Kurapika is a little older than her, she's 12/13 now while he's 17ish... which is awkward right now. But I do see quite a lot of older couples (in their twenties/thirties/forties etc) who have a four years age difference and they seem to be happy :) I think it's just awkward right now because she's barely a teen, whilst he would be considered a legal adult in most countries in real life. If they were older however (eg Himeko being 20 and him being 24) it wouldn't be as bad to be honest. ^^

Oh and she does control (or try to control) the two boys by trying to keep them out of trouble. But Killua is quite a good rational thinker too, I would consider him to be much smarter than her and react much smarter than her too in that situation. He just wasn't able to think straight after seeing how strong the Phantom Troupe really was (and we later find out why). But in the end, it's not like Killua listens to her, and Gon listens to no man. Hence Gon said that they need Killua to keep him and from doing something stupid (which happened a couple of times, so he was speaking from experience lol). Kou certainly doesn't act like it, but she does respect Killua based on his natural talent, and she doesn't really deny her respect for him either. She listens to him in tough spots too.

_**Morgiana chan -** _Thank you :)

_**Queechi -**_ Don't worry, I think at the rate I'm going I'd reach the Chimera ant arc quite quickly. I've even planned out an arc that will take place after the Election arc. Good luck with your own fanfiction, I'll keep up with it when I get time to read. Your review made me feel so flattered, haha xD

_**Lolipop-sama -** _Yep, but who wouldn't have a crush on badass Kurapika (the one from the Yorkshin arc is *_* _drooooooooool_). I've seen these kinds of crushes a lot, especially in 90s shoujo series. Writing about a 12 year old's puppy love for a mature, cool boy is fun and it's quite cute too, hehe ^^


	28. Scheming the Hunt

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 27**

_Scheming the Hunt_

_..._

Upon seeing him in person, Himeko was the first person to run up to Kurapika, beating the just as excited Gon by a mere split second. Kurapika was slightly taken back by the welcome hug he got, and pretty much the warm reception in general. The comfort he felt after being surrounded by his four friends gave him a reason to genuinely smile again. Not too long ago, Kurapika's heart felt empty, almost as if he had lost a piece of him. Yet, he didn't understand why he was feeling as if he had found another purpose to keep on living. Until this day, it was the vengeance against the Phantom Troupe that kept him going no matter how difficult the situation was to overcome. He didn't expect the Phantom Troupe to die this suddenly. There must have been many people like him whose families were killed by them, but he didn't care. He wanted to kill Chrollo and the rest of his group with his own, bare hands, so that the Kurta clan watching over him can rest in peace. After seeing them die so quickly, he was disappointed not at them, but at himself. If only he got his Hunter license sooner, if only he spent less time grieving over his loved ones and spent more time training to become stronger.

"Kou, can I please get a turn to talk to Kurapika, too?" Gon asked impatiently, but at the same time, he couldn't forget his manners. Although he asked politely, that didn't move Himeko one inch as she was still hogging Kurapika all to herself.

"I'm not stopping you from talking to him though," she pointed out. "Kurapika has a pair of good ears, I'm sure he'll be able to hear you regardless of me being in the way."

This feeling was soothing. His whole body, especially his heart and stomach tingled and felt feather light (despite Himeko's firm grip). Something at the back of his mind told him to appreciate the people he befriended throughout the Hunter exam. Seeing them again after the whole Phantom Troupe incident made him feel as if he was back home; he didn't feel this way since his time with the clan. The childish argument Gon and Himeko were having reminded him a lot of himself when he was younger, arguing with his friend Pairo. He was pretty reckless and curious himself, just like Gon when he was younger, so he always felt the urge to watch him, but also protect him so he doesn't turn out like him. Looking at Leorio, he gave off a fatherly smile whilst watching the two, the same way his own parents always smiled at him in the past. Killua wore a smug grin on his face whilst setting his eyes on Gon and Himeko, obviously having mischief in mind.

_"I'm back home." _Was something he wanted to say for quite a long time now, and although he didn't say it out loud for everyone else to hear, he said it to himself.

Although Kurapika was having his internal monologue, that didn't stop time for everyone around him. With the fair point Himeko made, Gon felt even more compelled to argue back. "Yeah, but I can't talk to him properly when you're in between. Eye contact is important when having a face to face conversation!"

Himeko sighed and finally let go. She knew Gon would just keep going until he won, so she just made the whole process a lot easier by stopping herself from talking back, much to Kurapika's relief. He was surprised by the sudden warm welcome, and really appreciated it, although he didn't really like physical contact. However, Himeko was beginning to unintentionally crush the poor guy because she just couldn't control her own excitement. "Here you go, now you can talk to him!"

Just when Himeko backed away and Gon was about to open his mouth, Killua snuck up from the back and pied their faces from behind, before running away. Gon and Himeko took a moment to absorb what just happened, and Gon was the first one out of the two to dash off to get him back. Kurapika watched the two boys run through the grassy fields, one trying to catch the other. He looked back to the second victim still standing in front of him, not moving an inch. Eventually, she wiped away the excess cream around her eyes before she curiously tasted what flavour the pie was. "_Urgh, it just had to be lemon!" _For a really unimportant reason, she just didn't like lemons, and she would simply refuse to eat or drink anything that was lemon or lime flavoured.

"Are you okay, Kou?" Kurapika asked with concern, seeing how her expression turned dark. Himeko just flashed him an overly happy smile, which just ended up creeping him out even more.

"Don't worry, I'm okay. Give me a minute, I have some business to attend!" She said in a surprisingly calm and collected tone. Kurapika then watched her turn around and march towards Killua and Gon who were still running around aimlessly. "Killua you bastard, I'm going to kill you!"

"_Oh crap!" _Killua thought, as he heard Himeko's angry voice. He looked in the direction the voice was coming from, only to see her run towards him at high speed, clearly not happy with his little prank. Having one of them after him was fine, but having them both chase after him could become a bit of a problem, especially since the two could overpower him when together. For now, he had to deal with Gon who was still tailing him. Killua came up with a plan, and then made a right turn towards their picnic spot to grab another pie. Gon was surprised to see him stop all of the sudden, but then again, that caused him to speed up so he could use the opportunity to catch up to him. Gon managed to catch up in no time, only for Killua to pie his face again, before tripping him into a nearby mud puddle. He then waited for Himeko, only for her to share the same, muddy fate as Gon. With another victory, Killua triumphantly ran off before the two could even stand up again.

Watching from afar, Kurapika couldn't help but wonder whether Gon and Himeko were going to be alright. He was about to walk up to them to help them up, but stopped the moment Gon got up and ran after Killua as if nothing happened, determined to get him back even more now. Himeko on the other hand just got up and sat in the mud puddle, facing the ground.

"Stop Killua, you made Kou cry," Gon yelled after Killua. Killua didn't believe it at first, thinking it was just a cheap trick to get his attention. But whilst running around for a little longer, he noticed that Gon was the only one chasing him, and that there was no sight of the mad woman. Gon, too, kept telling him to slow down because Himeko was upset. "Killua, you're the worst. Apologise to Kou right now."

When he did have the opportunity, Killua glanced in the direction of the puddle, only to see that she hasn't moved an inch from where she fell. It took him by surprise to see her still looking down, still sitting in the mud puddle. If anything, he expected her to just stand up and chase after him like Gon did, but then again, he didn't know much about her. This small joke painted him as the bad guy here, and he grew slightly concerned over her. He then stopped in his tracks to make his way towards her.

Upon arrival, he could somewhat see why any girl would be upset. Not only were her legs and cream coloured dress dirty, she also managed to get mud into her now long, black hair; and Killua couldn't even begin to imagine how hard it must be to wash such long hair.

"Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry," he said, before his guilty conscience made him hold out his hand to help her back up on he feet. "Here!" Himeko reached out for his hand, but before he could pull her up, she pulled him down and he fell flat on his face into the puddle next to her.

"Did you really think I'd cry over getting my clothes a little dirty?" She asked, before mumbling out a snide remark, loud enough for him to hear. "What an idiot!" Before Killua could get up and answer, Gon tackled him back down into the mud puddle, making sure he can't get back up again.

"We did it!" Gon beamed, high-fiving Himeko, "Serves you right, Killua!"

"You two planned this?!"

"Yep, while we were lying in the mud puddle," Gon admitted, rubbing his neck.

"You shouldn't mess with us!" Himeko added, high-fiving Gon again. "It's two against one!"

"Yeah, right!" Killua mocked, as he slowly got up into an upright position, "It was payback for eating my chocolate bar."

"I told you that I'll buy you a new chocolate bar after the auctions, so chill! Geez!" Himeko tried to calm him down again, "Besides, leaving a chocolate bar out was a your own fault. It was just asking to be eaten so we did it a favour!"

The argument was interrupted when Leorio arrived, ready to give them a lecture for getting themselves dirty in the mud, with right Kurapika behind him. "Look at you three, you're all dirty now and you've wasted the food I bought you!" Leorio began to yell, before offering Killua his hand to pull him out. Out of annoyance, Killua just pulled Leorio into the puddle, so now his navy blue blazer was covered in mud. Although the others didn't mind getting dirty, Leorio certainly did. He now had to take his suit to get dry cleaned. "What was that for?!"

"Nothing! Just felt like pulling you in the second you opened that mouth of yours, old man!"

Kurapika watched his friends in the mud and couldn't help but laugh at Leorio and Killua arguing just like the good old times back at the Hunter exam. His laughter caught the attention of Gon and Himeko, who immediately got an idea and looked at each other with mischievous smiles, before standing up and slowly making their way to Kurapika, who was still clean.

When they got back the Hotel, everyone took turns to have a shower before changing into a fresh set of clothes. Leorio still hasn't finished scolding the children, even after they've cleaned themselves.

"It's been so long since we've been together!" Gon beamed, looking around the room. For the longest time now, they've been waiting for Kurapika to fill in the gap that was missing. It was around half a year ago since they've departed and decided to go separate ways. Getting the clique back together took a lot more effort than they initially expected. If they were to travel back in time and tell their former selves that in around six months time, they would go up against one of the most notorious and most wanted bandits in the world, they probably would even believe it. But with the Phantom Troupe dead and Kurapika back, all was good.

"Where is Zepile?" Killua asked Leorio, after remembering that the two had spoken over the phone earlier that morning.

"He went off to find a couple more antiques at the market," Leorio answered. "We are only a few days away from the auction, so he seems to be doing his best. Anyways," he stopped and turned to look at Kurapika, "you look like you've changed a lot. You have this intense aura around you!"

Kurapika seemed quite taken back and surprised by the backhanded compliment he received from him. "Oh, really?" he asked, before a teasing smile appeared on his face. "You haven't changed at all."

"You are more annoying than before, too!" Leorio snapped at Kurapika's blunt commentary. "Never mind that, we heard that you've defeated a member of Phantom Troupe all by yourself, but we've only recently started learning _Nen_."

"If you are asking me for advice so you can go after the Troupe, then forget it!" Kurapika interrupted, knowing exactly where he was heading.

"We want to know because we want to master _Nen,_ too!" Gon went on to elaborate on Leorio's comment further. "Even if it's not to go after the Phantom Troupe, we need _Nen_ for the future, so we have to get stronger somehow."

"Then you shouldn't turn to me for advice," Kurapika stated bluntly, "It won't be of any use to you."

"But why?"

"I can only use my powers against the Phantom Troupe." Seeing only confused faces, Kurapika suggested that they should all sit down so he could explain his power. He started off by showing them the chains on his hand, "I used_ Vows and Limitations_ to obtain my powers," he confessed. "_Nen_ is dependent on your mental state, and the stronger your resolve is, the stronger you resolve is the more power you will obtain. So I vowed to use my abilities on only the Spiders, and if I broke the vow, I'd forfeit my life."

Hearing this, everyone is the room gasped. They knew Kurapika would go to extreme lengths to fulfill his goals, but they wouldn't have imagined that he'd ever carelessly put his life on the line like this. If anything, Kurapika was the type to think a plan through at least twice. To think that he would do something this stupid and reckless was gobsmacked them all.

"What do you mean by forfeiting your life?" Leorio asked.

"There is a _Nen_ blade next to my heart, so should I ever break my own rules, it will pierce my heart. It's what I agreed for. I needed power to defeat the Spiders, so this is my product that was produced as a result of pure hatred."

With Kurapika telling them so much about his abilities, Killua quickly grew uneasy. "Why are you telling us all of this?"

"I'm not sure myself to be honest," Kurapika replied, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. "On one hand, I just trust you all not to tell anyone. But I might also be relaxed because their leader is dead now."

"So, all we have to do is keep quiet now, right?" Leorio added.

Kurapika was right about one thing; he was a lot more relaxed now that Chrollo was announced dead. Take out the head, and the legs of the spider won't be able to do much; or that's what Hisoka had told him at least. However, Killua wasn't as calm as him. It didn't matter if half of the members were confirmed dead, there were others still on the loose. "One of their surviving members can read minds, so if we get caught then things might end up messy for all of us."

"But they didn't find out anything last time they kept us captive," Gon pointed out.

"Yeah, but that's because we didn't know Kurapika was the chain user back then," Himeko explained. "They didn't have a clue on what the chain user looked like either. The mind reading lady checked our thoughts on the way to their hideout, and that was before they gave us any sort of hints and neither did they know what the chain user looked like," Himeko explained. "Killua has a point. If they catch us again, everyone involved in this would be targeted, and that includes Leorio whom they've never even met before."

"Then we just have to stay away from them," Leorio questioned, pointing out the sanest solution to their dilemma. "I mean, that would be the most logical thing to do in our situation, wouldn't it?"

"It honestly depends on the member. If we can get the woman with the mind reading abilities to stay quiet, we wouldn't get in trouble." Killua explained, referring back to Pakunoda's abilities. "But there is also a member called Nobunaga. He was the one who kept us hostage for the whole day, and he was also the one who wanted Gon to join their group. He doesn't look like much at first glance, but his aura itself is immense. He's extremely dangerous and vowed to us that he'll be going after Kurapika to avenge the death of his fallen comrade. Since us three escaped, he'd probably come after our heads too. Either way, I think it's too soon for us to be this comfortable with other members still active. In the case of the other members' deaths, they might suspect Kurapika for that too."

"Do they suspect you three to have some sort of connection with Kurapika?" Leorio asked.

Killua shook his head, "No."

"Then that's fine! None of the remaining members will find out as long as you stay away from the mind reader, and as long as we don't go after them again, I doubt we'd run into them."

"Leorio does have a point. As long as we stay away from the mind reading woman, we'll all be safe." Himeko added to Leorio's previous statement, "She has to physically touch someone in order to read their minds, so all we have to do is avoid her."

The situation got to a stage where it would have been tricky to handle if the members were still alive, so just in case something were to happen, Kurapika decided to tell them the whole truth. For them to worry so much about his well being, and for them to be the only support he had at that moment, he thought they deserved to know. "There's something I haven't told you all," he confessed, and although his voice was buried by everyone else's, his words still managed to cause some silence. "I've been in contact with Hisoka. He knows I'm the chain user they're after."

The intensity of the news was able to make a big impact, but Killua was the first one to react in his flabbergasted tone. "What?!"

When it came to Gon, the fact that Hisoka was involved already worried him. He didn't even need to hear Kurapika's whole sentence for his eyes to widen in surprise. "Hisoka?!"

"Are you out of your mind?" Himeko was the only one to form a full sentence despite being surprised. "He works for the Phantom Troupe too, if you were to make one wrong move, he'll turn this whole thing against you." With majority of them being to shocked to even respond to her question, Leorio was the only person holding her back from saying more.

"You've literally made a deal with the devil, Kurapika." He added.

"I've made a pact with him a couple of days ago, and considering how everything turned out, I think he planned this back when we finished the Hunter exam." Hisoka's cunning nature wasn't new to them. If there was something in it for him, he will most definitely help them out. He spared Leorio's life after being impressed by his courage, he helped Gon pass the fourth phase because he thought of him as a worthy opponent. Knowing Killua's history and seeing how Illumi was after him made him realise how strong Killua must have been too. In Himeko's case, he saw her as a potential opponent, but that wasn't his reason for letting her live peacefully. He was more interested in her older brother Hakuryuu, whom he tried to challenge a couple of times but always got turned down. However, he knew that bringing the siblings back together will get him to fight.

"I've made a pact with him, but now that his target is dead, I don't know what he'll do." Knowing how unpredictable Hisoka was, this made it all the more scarier to think about.

...

After having pulled a stunt that had now spread throughout the city of Yorkshin and was believed by nearly all, the Phantom Troupe gathered together at the same hideout from before. Chrollo informed his members to move out for the time being until he were to call them back together for their next mission. Although their job didn't go as expected, it was still complete and there was nothing left to do in the big city. If anything, the longer they stay the more likely someone in the mafia would find out about their faked death.

However, hearing the decision Chrollo has made, Nobunaga especially felt infuriated and betrayed. Not everyone seemed to be happy with their leader's choice, but most of them chose to stay quiet in a situation like this. Whatever were to happen, their trust in Chrollo was absolute, and it was this trust that was able to allow this group of cold-blooded murderers to work together so peacefully. It was the respect they had for him that made them listen to every order he gave them. Although there was no official second in command in the group, everyone knew that Nobunaga would fit that role perfectly if they were to choose someone. This was the reason why Nobunaga felt like he had the authority to speak out.

"We are leaving?" Nobunaga questioned, raising a brow. He was disappointed; he wanted Chrollo to give out other orders. Their job in Yorkshin city was over, but Nobunaga had other plans, and he expected everyone, including their leader to know what they were.

"We are departing tonight and we are taking the treasures with us," Chrollo repeated yet again, hoping that this would set things right the protester. "Our job here is done. This is the end of our mission here."

"It's not the end!" Nobunaga cut in, his eyes narrowing at his boss. He didn't care what it would take, he wanted to hunt Kurapika down, whether or not the rest of the group actually helped him out. Chrollo's straight, indifferent facial expression made Nobunaga all the more furious. It looked as if he didn't care a single bit about Uvogin's death. "I still have some things to sort out between me and the chain user."

Despite Nobunaga's raging fury, the group leader remained relatively calm. "You seem obsessed," he commented bluntly.

"Yes, I am obsessed." Nobunaga replied. "Does it look like I'm going to run away without avenging Uvo's death? Afterall, Uvo is probably feeling lonely in hell. We'll have to send him a playmate."

With this constant back and forth, all the others could do was watch in silence, not picking a side. Although Chrollo was the leader, there were a handful of members who shared the same feelings as Nobunaga. There were others who knew this job required them to throw their lives away before joining the group. Either way, no one felt like they could intervene between the two, until Franklin knew that he had to do it if no one else were to.

"Cut it out Nobunaga!" He interjected in a low tone. "The boss has given us an order."

"Yes, and the boss, _Chrollo's_ words are absolute, am I right?" He mocked, putting emphasis on their leader's name. The man whom they all referred to as their boss, he wasn't afraid to call him by his first name. Instead, he brought him down from his higher up position to a position where they would both be regarded as equals. If anything, at this point Nobunaga just wanted to get some sort of reaction out of him, even if it was just a twitch of brows. The mask he emotionless mask he wore, he wanted to break it down and make him feel some sort of guit for letting on of his group members die. "Unless the orders are not his."

"Nobunaga, watch your tong-"

"Keep quiet, I'm talking to _Chrollo_ here."

Nobunaga started to raise his tone to Chrollo, but Chrollo on the other hand casually stood up from his seat and made his way towards the mad man. "Before I answer any of your questions, I want you to answer mine. What is your full name, blood type and date of birth?"

Nobunaga was slightly taken back by his out of the blue question, and although he wanted to yell back and ask whether he was potentially mocking him, Nobunaga kept his cool. Although it took him a moment to absorb, he obediently answered the question. "Nobunaga Hazama, blood type B, September eight 1970. But you already knew most of that, why did you ask?"

"Write it down on this sheet." Without answering his question, Chrollo gave him yet another order, as he handed him a blank sheet of paper.

"Why didn't you ask me in the first place?" Nobunaga was growing more irritated by the second, before he snatched the paper from Chrollo's hand and proceeded to write down what he was asked before handing it back. Chrollo then used Neon's stolen ability and wrote out Nobunaga's fortune before handing it back to him and explaining it.

Nobunaga started reading his own fortune and interpreted it as much as he could. He told the members that five of them would die in a week. Chrollo explained that the fortune Neon predicted him said the same thing about five additional members dying in a week. Hearing this, Shizuku stepped down from the crates she was sitting on before asking to see his fortune. Her eyes quickly scanned through his fortune, written in verses just like a poem. There were a couple of things she understood, while other metaphors she couldn't make much sense of. She then requested to see her own fortune, hoping hers would fill in some gaps.

After Chrollo handed her back the sheet of paper, she noticed that she only had two verses in her poem. Her first verse matched Nobunaga's, but in the second verse it said that she will soon join her comrade to keep him from being lonely. The lone member being referred to in this case was none other than the deceased Uvogin, and by joining him she concluded that she would be one of the five members to die the following week. The members were represented as calendar months in the verses, so they managed to conclude that both Pakunoda and Shalnark would share the same fate as her.

Shizuku kept reading through Nobubaga's fortune to try and identify the cause of their death, spotting the mention of scarlet eyes. Although Hisoka was a primary suspect on the list, he was soon crossed off as he had no affiliation with scarlet eyes. There was no possibility of it being an insider, so it was natural for them to suspect the chain user. Although nothing seemed to tie up at this point, Shalnark suddenly seemed to have remembered something that could give them a clue on the chain user's identity. Being one of the brains in the group it wasn't too hard for him to remember the time they massacred an entire clan, just for their pretty, red eyes. The Kurta clan, an isolated group of people who hid to protect their scarlet eyes, something outsiders would consider jewels. Shalnark continued to point out the possibility of a sole survivor of the clan hunting them down to seek revenge, something that had happened to them ever so often.

"If we go off to fight the chain user, we will lose half of our members. Abilities like yours and mine are easy to replace, but abilities that Shizuku and Pak have are rare," he continued to make sense of their situation. "The group can't afford to lose their abilities."

"If we leave today, we won't run into the chain user next week and the prophecy for next week won't come true," Chrollo added. "You and Uvo were our groups strength, so you were willing to fight and lose your life at any point. Shizuku, Shal and Pak are our lifelines, they collect valuable information. We rely on them too much for us to lose them. You are their shield, so you have to protect them."

Before Chrollo could talk any more, Hisoka decided to join the conversation, suggesting an idea Chrollo wouldn't be able to turn down. "Maybe you should write out all of our fortunes. Who knows, maybe we'll end up getting the missing pieces of this puzzle. There might be a way for us to avoid this prophecy and still fight the chain user."

Chrollo knew there was some sort of hidden motive behind that request, but he just didn't know what it was. Surely, they could all admit that Hisoka was one of the stronger, more skilled members of the group. For now, Chrollo considered him a valuable addition to his group, but unlike his other members, he didn't trust Hisoka. Not only did he know Hisoka was after his head for one reason or another, he also didn't know the extends to his abilities, making him even more fearful. This was the main reason why he decided to stick with two to three members at all times. Why someone like Hisoka would want to request his fortune to be read still confused him. If anything, the chain user would only be able to take down the weaker members, or members whose abilities weren't combat orientated. Hisoka had quiet a lot of experience when it came to combat, to the point where he even enjoyed taking one of two lives. Secondly, getting his fortune read in front of everyone else would reveal his own hidden motive behind joining the group, something Hisoka was smart enough not to do. Unless he stopped caring at this point.

There was no way for him to do anything with all the members gathered together. He wasn't the only one suspicious of Hisoka, everyone else was too. Nobunaga, Feitan, Franklin, with them around, it would be hard for him to try anything. After all, Hisoka knew just how strong everyone in the group was, and if he was after the head of the spider, he wouldn't bother with the limbs just yet. Chrollo accepted his suggestion and began writing out the fortunes of the members who could remember their date of births. Not everyone did, so for now they could only use the available fortunes to get a hint of what was going to happen. The members started reading their fortunes in silence, and Hisoka too was reading his own fortune, alone, away from the crowd, until Pakunoda approached him.

Just like everyone else in the group, Pakunoda didn't trust him. However, she was much more vocal about her suspicion. "Let me read your fortune."

Hisoka looked at her in the eyes, before handing her the fortune with a villainous smile. "I don't think you'll be very happy with what you'll read."

Ignoring his warning, she proceeded to read his fortune as her eyes widened in shock. "Look at this everyone," she said as she walked back to the other members. Shizuku took the fortune and began reading it out loud and not being able to believe his own ears, Nobunaga snatched the paper and started reading it out loud again.

_A red-eyed customer will visit your shop,_

_seeking to make a trade._

_He will use the sword of law upon you,_

_taking away the calendar's secrets._

_The eleven-legged spider grows homesick,_

_losing five more legs._

_Do not leave your temporary shelter,_

_for you are one of the remaining legs._

However, Hisoka changed the text on his prophecy using his ability and this, the troupe didn't know. He didn't change the first verse a lot, but his second verse had major changes from the original:

_The customer will return one hot day,_

_leaving you alone with a man wearing the St. Peters cross._

_The false fourth moon will be torn away from the calendar._

_Only six pages will remain._

Being the only one who knew the truth, Hisoka smiled slyly, as Nobunaga unsheathed his sword and headed in his direction.

...

Meanwhile, back at the hotel Killua still wasn't convinced whether it was safe for them to stick around. "If Nobunaga catches any of us three again, Kurapika will be in danger. We managed to escape once due to dumb luck, but I doubt he'll fall for that trick again. We can't just sit around and wait like this, we should go and take the remaining members out since we have Kurapika by our side now. We know where their current base is, so we should go after them before they decide to leave their base."

Killua looked back at Gon and Himeko who weren't too please with his idea. The group's leader was dead, so there was no need to go after them anymore. Gon wanted to convince him to stop chasing after them. "Would you mind if I made a suggestion?" He asked, looking at Kurapika who still seemed very halfhearted about the situation. Kurapika gave him a gentle smile, along with a slight nod, telling him it was alright to go ahead. Killua was patiently waiting to hear what he had to suggest, and knowing Gon, it was probably the sheer opposite of his own plan. Himeko and Leorio hoped he had a plant that would stop this endless killing and give Kurapika another purpose. "Now that most of them are dead, why can't you focus on something else instead. In sure the stolen eyes are somewhere in this world, so I think it's better if you give your deceased clan members peace by finding their eyes. I'm sure they'd be happier if you found their eyes and gave them a proper funeral. If anything, those eyes are much safer in your hands too." Knowing that this way Kurapika won't be in any more danger, Himeko and Leorio quickly agreed to Gon's idea with only Killua being against it.

Kurapika thought hard, but Killua began to grow impatient, "We have to move fast, we can't just sit here and think. By the time we finish they might already be on their move."

"I agree with Gon!" Himeko stated, interrupting Killua's little outburst. "I don't want Kurapika to chase them after so much has happened. As long as we don't go after the rest of the members ourselves, we are less likely to meet them. And who knows, maybe they have moved out of Yorkshin by now too. Instead of making a big fuss, we should stay as low as possible until Gon's auction is over and then quietly leave this city."

"How can you two say that?" Killua yelled in disbelief. "Once we go separate ways again, who knows what might happen. Kurapika won't have us around anymore."

"Does it really matter if Kurapika has us around or not?" She asked. "You said it yourself, Kurapika is stronger than us, so even if we were to fight alongside him, we still don't have the skills to make much of a difference. You saw it yourself didn't you, the three of us couldn't even fight one of them."

"It's better to eliminate the threat when we can still somehow track them down."

"I'm still against the idea!" Gon stuck to his initial opinion, before Leorio thought it would be appropriate to express his opinion on the matter, too.

"I agree with Kou and Gon. Kurapika's only lived this long to avenge his clan, but he hasn't done much for himself. This is a good point for him to find some closure."

Kurapika spent a little while contemplating both ends of the argument. Whilst Killua had a good point coming from someone who had experience in this field, Gon and Himeko's peaceful approach did sound quite pleasing as well. "That mind reading woman you mentioned does sound like a threat," he admitted. "But with their leader dead, I don't want to waste more time. I'll do what Gon and Kou suggested and recover the eyes of my clan members."

Gon and Himeko were finally able to smile in relief, while Killua was gobsmacked. "Seriously?"

"Yes," Kurapika nodded.

"Kurapika made up his mind, so we should let him do what he wants," Leorio added, causing Killua to sit back down in defeat.

"Sorry, Killua," Kurapika apologised with a gentle smile, "But thank you for the valuable information." As soon as he came to a conclusion and was about to close the topic and move onto something more lighthearted, Kurapika's phone vibrated, catching him off guard. "It's from Hisoka." Kurapika's words raised tension inside the room. They didn't know what Hisoka might be up to now since Chrollo is dead, but Kurapika didn't hesitate to check the text message.

* * *

**From: Hisoka**

_No subject_

The bodies were fake... (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

* * *

Kurapika spent a moment in silence, reading the text over and over again in case his eyes have failed him the first couple of times. But his eyes weren't wrong the first time he read the message. No matter how many times he tried to read the text, it still said the same thing. The Phantom Troupe faked their deaths, and the members were very well alive. No matter how careful he had been over the past couple of years, their simple act had fooled him. He felt enraged at himself for having believed such a thing, and he didn't exactly know how he should take the news. He could curse at the members, curse at himself even, but none of that was going to make the situation any better.

_"I don't understand, how could I let this happen?"_ Kurapika thought,_ "Why did I even believe that they died?"_

Judging from his expression alone, the others could tell something was wrong. It took a lot to get Kurapika to look that surprised, and it usually had something to do with the Phantom Troupe. Was asking him directly going to be of any use, because judging from his face, he still had a lot to take in. All they could do was wait patiently for Kurapika to relay the message on to them. He finally read the message out to everyone else. "The bodies were fake…"

Leorio's eyes widened in shock, "They are still alive?!"

Although it was caused by a change in circumstances, Killua's plan was the only plan that could work out now. If at least Chrollo had died, Kurapika would have laid off, but as all members were safe and sound, and could potentially leave the city, Kurapika would definitely change his mind. He looked at both Gon and Himeko, who now looked like they had no objections to make about his plan before facing Kurapika. "The situation changed," Killua pointed out, after Kurapika finally calmed down. "Are you going after them?"

Kurapika nodded in response, and now that Kurapika had made his decision, they couldn't talk him out of it. Instead, they thought of the next best option to ensure Kurapika's safety. "Then we are coming too!" Himeko stated.

Gon nodded, as she took the words right out of his mouth. "Yeah, we'll help as much as we can!"

Kurapika just stared blankly at them, unsure on whether it was right to involve them in his mess. The Phantom Troupe already kept them hostage once, thinking they were involved with him. If they were to ever run into them again, he knew they wouldn't be able to make it out alive again. Before they could continue their conversation, Kurapika's phone vibrated. He checked the screen, and after seeing a familiar number, he picked up immediately. Seeing how the call was from his co-worker Melody, and as the Phantom Troupe is still alive, Kurapika wished nothing bad had happened to his boss and his co-workers. But Melody's voice wasn't agitated, so that alone managed to calm him down. Instead, she informed him about the mafia communities recent decision to withdraw the reward set on the criminals after learning that they were originally from Meteor city. To a regular person, this piece of information wouldn't make much difference, but to someone like Kurapika, this piece of information was more than enough to put the missing pieces together. After disconnecting the phone, Kurapika decided to pass on the information to everyone else in the room.

"That explains why I couldn't find a lot on them on the internet," Leorio stated, now that the reason behind the group being so low-key was revealed. "It also explains why the police aren't able to arrest them either. To be honest, a lot of things add up now."

Despite it clearing a couple of things up for three people in the room, Gon and Himeko were still clueless about everything. "It might explain a lot in your case, but I'm not processing a single thing here." Himeko interrupted the boys. "If anything, I'm a lot more confused than I was before. Would anyone mind explaining what exactly Meteor city is?"

"You don't know?" Leorio asked.

Himeko shook her head in response, "It's the first time I've heard of such a city existing. Is it a place in a third world country, or maybe a lesser known place. And what's so special about being from that place anyway, why would the police ignore crimes committed by anyone who's from there? What makes them so different from regular, blood thirsty monsters?"

From all the cities and countries she had memories from books and atlases over the years, Meteor city was definitely not one. But then again, Meteor city wasn't known to many, so hearing about it from a mere textbook was impossible. When it came to Leorio, Kurapika and Killua who had inside sources to hear these kinds of rumours from, it wasn't much of a surprise for them to know about it.

Gon however had just as many questions as her, "I want to know, too."

"If you were to explain Meteor city in one sentence," Leorio tried to think of a single sentence to fully explain what kind of a place this was, and it had to be something simple enough for it to make sense to Gon. "I guess you could say it's a city populated by people, who as far as society is concerned do not exist."

"There is a city like that?" Gon asked in astonishment, and Himeko seemed to share the same feeling as him. "So, that explains why Kou has never heard of it either."

"Yeah, official reports claim it's uninhabited, but it's said that around ten million people live there, maybe even more. It originally started off as a dump back in the day, and people began living off of that dump. You are allowed to dump anything there. Garbage, weapons, even people."

"That's horrible!" Himeko commented. "It's worse than a child getting abandoned at an orphanage or on the streets, they were dumped off at an oversized garbage dump. To think that such a place even exists..."

"It's horrible, but people started to accept anything that was dumped there. People from Meteor city are said to have developed a relationship, thinner than strangers and stronger than family."

"That explains why Nobunaga wanted to avenge the death of his fellow group member so much," Gon added.

"It's actually the mafia community that provides Meteor city with weapons," Kurapika revealed, after recalling a rumour that had been floating around the mafia community for years now. "But in return, they ask for residents to join the mafia."

"People who don't exist in our society, they are perfect for committing crimes," Leorio pointed out. "The Phantom Troupe destroyed that relationship the moment they ruined the underground auction, but as far as the mafia is concerned, they prioritise that relationship more than anything."

Little by little, things eventually became clear to the two and now a lot had started to make sense. The question Gon asked Nobunaga on why he felt no remorse killing others, but cried for his own comrades death was answered. Whether they were angry at the society was still unclear, but one thing was for sure, they didn't care about anyone other than themselves, which although Gon tried to deny it, he couldn't help but know where they were coming from. It finally made sense why the police and mafia pretty much ignored every crime they committed. They were humans just like Gon and the others, but it finally explained their ruthless, animal-like nature towards other humans.

Following their conversation, Kurapika left the hotel to undergo some further investigation. If the Phantom Troupe was still alive just like Hisoka claimed, then they would try to target the auction again. At this point, it wasn't even the lives of his employers at stake but instead the lives of everyone who was set on visiting the auction again. If the news about the mafia community cutting off their involvement with the Phantom Troupe, there was no way for anyone to guarantee the safety of all the guests. First he had to find out whether or not the mafia was going to go ahead with another auction, then he had to plan ahead before taking the next move. During this time, Leorio took the time to leave the room and contact Zepile, wanting to keep him updated on the current situation. With the two elders gone, Himeko, Killua and Gon were the only ones who remained in the hotel room.

Killua's silence was enough to inform his friends on his difference of opinion. Despite the two having voiced out their willingness to stay in Yorkshin city and continue to aid Kurapika in his quest, Killua remained relatively quiet during that time. It was somewhat ironic in this case though. Killua initially wanted Kurapika to go out and take care of the rest of the remaining members when they thought Chrollo was killed by a third party. But after hearing the news of all of the members being unharmed, he knew there was no other option left for them. If Kurapika were to leave now without doing anything, it would come right back and bite him in his butt when he least expects it. However, when it came to their own involvement in this, Killua had other thoughts. Kurapika refused to teach them his way of learning _Nen, _so there was no way of them becoming any stronger than they already were. If anything, they were putting too much at stake. Killua felt as if Himeko and Gon didn't fully grasp just how frightening their enemies' powers were.

Gon could tell just how unwilling his best friend was to let them leave. If anything, Killua could forbid them to have anything to do with the Phantom Troupe and he understood that it was for their own safety. But he also knew that despite Killua's physical strength, he wouldn't go to extreme lengths to stop him from helping Kurapika. After all, he thought of him as a friend too. With just this silent staring going on in the room however, Gon knew they wouldn't be able to come to a conclusion. Instead, he decided to voice out his own wish clearly, "I want to continue pursuing the Troupe!"

Killua expected this conversation to pop up, but then again, this was Gon whom he was dealing with. There wasn't going to be any reason that would make him want to back out now, but he still went ahead to lay out the whole perspective in front of his friend, hoping that would help him make a more fully thought out and rational decision. "For us, there is no point in doing that anymore," he pointed out. "The mafia scrapped the reward they set on the Phantom Troupe. You are just going to risk your life for nothing!"

"I understand, but I still want to give it a shot!" He replied with the same amount of determination. Killua's reasoning didn't change his willingness to help Kurapika one bit, in fact, he already knew that there was no personal gain in them chasing after the criminals. He agreed with Killua more or less, not denying his reasoning at all, but despite all the dangers they may face, he wanted to help his friend.

With neither of them wanting to change their minds, they both turned to Himeko, hoping she'd somehow make the two draw to a conclusion. But knowing her nature, Killua couldn't help but feel like he knew what she was going to say. Despite her not liking to jump into something without a fully thought out plan, he noticed just how much she went out of her way to help Kurapika.

"Logically speaking, Killua is right." She confessed after a moment of thinking. However, the boys knew she wasn't done just yet, and although it sounded like Killua had the upper hand right now, they knew there was a 'but' coming up next. "The fact that we managed to escape Nobunaga the first time was dumb luck, but I doubt that will happen again. There is no reward for us to get involved anymore, and even if there was a reward, if we were to get caught again, we'd be putting not just ourselves but also Kurapika and even Leorio in danger." For some reason, it started to look better and better for Killua's side of the argument. "If anything, it would be selfish for us to want to go along when there's an obvious difference in skill between us and them. It isn't going to put just us in danger, but everyone around us who helped Kurapika."

_"I thought she was going to help Gon, but she's not doing a good job at that. We just have to wait for a big 'but' to turn everything around."_

"But at the same time, it's horrible to just let Kurapika fight all alone against the whole group. It doesn't matter how much we help him, as long as we look out for him and make sure nothing happens to him I guess that is fine. I want to help Kurapika too, and at times like this I don't think it's bad to act a little selfish."

"Are you two even thinking about the consequences? Do you remember what we came here for in the first place?"

"Greed island?" Gon asked.

"Exactly, and we're no where near the amount of money we need."

"Greed island is one thing, but you're clearly forgetting something else," Himeko interrupted him. "I don't know exactly when you two found out about Greed island, but we promised to meet up here for the auctions before splitting up after visiting Killua's estate. That was before you two even found out clues about Gon's father having some kind of clue in that game. We more or less wanted to help as soon as he heard the news from Hisoka."

"So, you don't care if you end up getting in his way?" he questioned. "What good will it do if you want to help him but end up slowing him down? Neither of you have bad intentions, you just want to help out a friend. But in some cases you will have to look at the bigger picture. Unless either of you have a plan of course."

Hearing that response from him, she couldn't help but sigh. There was no plan she had, and there was nothing she could think of in a matter of a few minutes. Although Gon somewhat relied on her to bring up a counter argument to convince Killua to go after the Phantom Troupe, there was nothing much she could do either. "He as a point, Gon. If we aren't strong enough, we're only going to waste our own time and Kurapika's time. We also need to save up enough money before the auction, or we can kiss Greed island good-bye. Who knows when and where we'll get another opportunity to get our hands on the game."

Gon sighed in disappointment, "Not you too, Kou."

"I'm sorry, I do want to help Kurapika but it's really hard for someone like me to defy logic like you normally do. If only I had a plan, then I could definitely convince him to go after the Phantom Troupe."

"But I do have a plan!" Gon beamed, surprising both of his peers. He was the last person they expected to have planned out a mission this complex. If anything, the pair were very curious to what this so called plan was. However, no matter how long they stared at him to get a word out, he just grinned back at them. "I'm not telling you, it's a secret!"

"A secret?!" That moment, something inside Killua just snapped as he got increasingly irritated at his friend. He wrapped his hands around Gon's neck, before shaking him, hoping he could somehow shake the truth out of him as well. "What the hell? Don't joke around, Gon!"

"Let go Killua," Gon struggled to get out of his grip. "I think I'm going to die."

Before anything worse could happen to him, Himeko eventually decided to interrupt and pull the two boys apart. "Let him go, Killua. He won't be able to tell us anything if he does end up dying on us!" She stood on the sidelines, dumbfounded at everything that was happening in front of her. Killua eventually let go, and Gon tried to catch his breath in the meantime. "Putting that aside, how confident are you that your plan will work out. Knowing you, it's probably something reckless, but how likely is it to work?"

Gon thought for a second before replying with full confidence, "Seventy percent!"

"Seventy?!" Killua exclaimed in astonishment. First Gon admits he has a plan, now he was confident in his plan as well. Killua didn't expect Gon to be this confident, if anything he expected him to be no more than fifty percent sure it would work.

"Maybe sixty-five," Gon corrected himself with a grin, after giving it another quick thought. Killua sighed before he looked at Himeko for her opinion, but all she could do is shrug and give him a '_I don't know, you decide for yourself'_ look. There was nothing much she could do either. He didn't have a plan for himself, and the only other person in the room right now whom he could rely on a reasonable, fully thought out plan couldn't think of one either, so he just had to try and work with whatever Gon had to offer.

_"It's a fifty-fifty gamble!"_ Killua thought. "_But it's still better than nothing. It could be worth a chance." _He then gave Gon and Himeko a defeated look, "Fine Gon, have it your way. I won't try to hold you two back, but only if Kurapika agrees."

"That's fine!" Himeko nodded in agreement. "It's not like we can do much on our own anyway, so we'll have to ask Kurapika either way."

During the time the trio was conversing, Leorio managed to finish his call with Zepile and was about to head back to the room. With new problems showing up now and then, he had to make sure their main organiser for the auction was up to date with everything. After he finished giving him a feedback, he got one back about the sum he managed to collect at a local antique store. Since he Gon was pretty irresponsible and unorganised, and as neither Himeko nor Killua knew much about auctions or selling antiques, they left everything to Zepile and Leorio. Although Leorio was quite good at bargaining, dealing with antiques wasn't really his speciality, so it was thanks to Zepile that they managed to get pretty close to the sum of money they needed.

On the way, he managed to run into Kurapika who was done with his research too. According to his boss, the mafia was going ahead with the auction that very night, and no matter how much he tried, they weren't going to change their minds. Kurapika didn't pass on the message about the Phantom Troupe still being alive, knowing that they'd probably ask him a lot of questions about where he got the information from. But then again, telling them wouldn't exactly make a difference in the first place. They weren't going to change their minds about the auction and neither would they go after the Phantom Troupe. At the end of the day, this was Kurapika's battle to fight alone.

After hearing updates on the mafia's decision to go through with the auctions, Leorio grew worried. Now they didn't even know that the auction hall was going to be under attack again, and even if they did know, they wouldn't fight back. But Kurapika still looked determined to go after them. "You're not going to go after them again, right?" Leorio asked, but Kurapika's silence told him otherwise. "That's crazy! The mafia won't be on your side anymore."

"You're wrong, the mafia was never working with me in the first place." Kurapika confessed. "I was working alone all this time."

Leorio's eyes widened in astonishment. All this time he was under the impression that Kurapika had a couple of back up forces, but it just turned out that all the forces the mafia had to offer weren't useful at all. In the end, Kurapika was referred to join a group of assassins who were hired by the mafia bosses and fight alongside them. The only name Kurapika could remember correctly were Zeno and Silva Zoldyck, but considering how strong Killua was, Leorio could only begin to imagine how strong his father and grandfather were. Kurapika could vaguely remember a couple of names in that group, and according to Leorio they were big-shots. Famous assassins who charged at a really high price. Leorio seemed rather impressed to hear that Kurapika was considered to be on the same level as them, and what impressed him even more was the fact that none of them worked together, so once again, Kurapika worked all alone.

The two elders entered the room right in time during the conversation, as Gon and the others were already waiting for their arrival. Thanks to Leorio's loud voice, the trio could hear their conversation quite clearly as they walked down the hotel corridor, so they knew Kurapika had been working alone all this time. That just meant they had one more excuse to try and convince Kurapika to let them help. Before Kurapika could even step inside the room, Himeko bombarded him with requests. "Kurapika, please let us help you! We don't want you to work alone anymore," she stated in a worried tone. "You are up against a whole group of criminals, and they're after you as well. We can't just let you handle everything alone."

"We'll do anything," Gon added with determination. "We don't want you to fight alone anymore."

Although the three were lined up right next to each other, only two chose to speak out their true opinions. They were anxiously waiting for Kurapika to finish considering their offer, but there was one who was hoping for the opposite to happen. "_Turn them down…"_ Killua thought, focusing intently on Kurapika, hoping he could somehow read his mind.

"There is no reward anymore," Kurapika tried to remind them. He was right, there was no reason for them to continue fighting. After all, the sole reason everyone else managed to get themselves involved with the Phantom Troupe was because of the reward placed on their heads. Even if they got injured during the process, they would have gotten hurt for a valid reason. As of now, Gon, Killua, Himeko and Leorio had nothing to do with the Phantom Troupe, so they would be putting themselves into unneeded danger, especially since Nobunaga still had a score to settle with them.

"That's right, but Kou and I still want to help no matter what," Gon declared.

Killua's eyes shifted from Gon to Kurapika once again, "_Turn them down, turn them down…"_

Kurapika turned his body towards them, "You'll be risking your lives."

"_Don't say that Kurapika, that's what they want to hear from you!"_ Killua thought.

Kurapika stared at Gon's and Himeko's wrinkled foreheads before he made his decision, "Okay, let's devise a plan."

"_He actually agreed…"_ Killua could only force out a chuckle, nervous to what could happen next, seeing how Gon and Himeko happily nodded in agreement.

To start planning the pursuit, Leorio suggested that it would be better if they didn't just crowd the entrance of the room and sat around the oak coffee table in one corner of the room. Following his advice, they proceeded to move and sit on the sofas around the table, quietly waiting for Kurapika to fill them in on his plan. Knowing him, they had a hunch that he would have already had a plan in mind all along but just needed to find a way to execute it. "First we need someone to watch their base and provide the rest with any updates."

There weren't many options to choose from; only Gon, Killua and Himeko knew where the base was. However, that was were the problem lied. They had to choose someone suitable to go ahead and keep an eye on their base. Himeko looked at her two friends, both in thought. Kurapika and Leorio were patiently waiting for the three to decide amongst themselves, and all three of them didn't mind doing it. But there was something she wondered. How many jobs does Kurapika have in mind, and how difficult are those other jobs. In Killua's case, he would be more suited for something that required more skills, and Gon who has caught up with Killua in such little time would also be more suited for something else.

_"I don't know how hard the other roles will be, if I'm supposed to hideout near their base then I just need to be good at using Zetsu. The top-knot samurai and pink haired girl just had a hunch that someone was following them, but that's because they were acting as a bait in the first place. If anything, my Zetsu skills are enough for this job." _Before anyone else could, she raised her hand to volunteer to fill that role. "Me, I don't mind keeping an eye on them."

"Are you sure?" Kurapika questioned, to which she nodded her head firmly. Kurapika took that as a sign that she was mentally prepared and ready to do her job efficiently. "The target is that Pakunoda woman, no one else. Understood?"

Himeko nodded again, "Understood!"

"Do you even remember how to get to their hideout?" Killua asked, not trusting her with her directions. Unlike Kurapika, he wasn't so convinced. "If you get lost, then it will mess everything else up. Without anyone to give us updates, we won't be able to do anything. You are practically the base of the whole mission, we'll all fall apart if something goes wrong on your part."

"I should be able to get there if I follow the path through the forest like we did last night. I'm smart enough to remember at least that much."

"Don't push your luck! If you don't know how to get there then let me do it instead."

Kurapika interrupted them before they were about to start fighting again, "In that case, you two should go. Two people are better than one and besides, we need as much information as possible. If you split up near their base, it'll be more convenient for us."

"Wouldn't Killua be suited better for another task?" Himeko asked. "I mean, you'd rather put Killua to good use and have me hide near their base and keep an eye on Pakunoda. If anything, I won't have a direct encounter with them unless I get caught. If you need someone with you, then the best option for you to choose is either Killua or Gon."

"Well, I just need a driver." He informed them, before looking at Leorio.

Leorio looked around before pointing at himself. "Me?" He asked.

"Leorio is the only one who has a license and is able to drive me around. Neither of you are able to drive, so this is something only Leorio can do."

"What about me?" Gon asked, being the only one left now.

"I want you to act as a decoy."

"Decoy? Isn't that the most dangerous role?" Himeko asked. "What if he gets caught again?"

"While Gon distracts everyone, I'll capture Pakunoda and escape by car," Kurapika explained. "I doubt anything will happen to Gon if we have one of them as hostage. I'm trusting Gon to come up with a method himself, I need him to divert their attention for at least a second."

"Wouldn't it be better if someone goes with Gon?" Killua asked.

"That would indeed be more logical, but we don't want to confuse ourselves either. It might help us distract them for longer, but it would be more of a hassle for me to capture that woman since we can't predict who she will go after. Do you understand now?" Kurapika questioned. "If I send Kou with Gon then, it would be hard for me to predict who she will go after, so it would be easier for us to just send out one decoy instead of two."

"How am I supposed to divert their attention?"

Kurapika motioned towards the clock, "We have six hours left until the auction, so they will start to move out before that. You have time to figure out a way and I'm trusting you with the role, Gon. You have been captured by them and you also managed to escape, so I think you will be alright."

Before he could go on, Killua wanted to ask something that had been on his mind for quite a long time now. "Why are you suddenly taking our help? You've been against our involvement all this time!"

"I have to eliminate that Pakunoda woman no matter what," he answered. "I've come to realise that she doesn't just pose a threat to me, but to all five of us in this room. Even if you four never got yourselves involved with them, that woman could have still somehow made you their target just to get back at me. I never thought about this before because I wasn't aware of her abilities, but with me starting a war, I've unintentionally involved everyone who's close to me."

Just then, both Killua and Leorio sensed something about Kurapika, and this was more than enough reason to help him accomplish his goal. "_Something is different about him. __His resolve is stronger."_

A moment of silence engulfed the hotel room, before Gon's next unreasonable request caught everyone off guard, "Before we head out though, I want you to put a _Nen_ blade inside me."

"Gon didn't you listen to him?" Leorio questioned, stammering after hearing the younger boy's dangerous wish. "Kurapika can't use his abilities on anyone else other than the Phantom Troupe."

Although he wasn't the brightest bulb in the batch, he was exceptionally sharp. Sharp enough to point out a minor hole in Kurapika's earlier explanation that everyone else simply missed. "But Kurapika said he used it on himself although he isn't part of the Phantom Troupe!" Realising that Kurapika did end up digging a big hole in his earlier discussion, the others looked at him, expecting an answer.

"I can't explain any further without increasing my own risk."

Hearing that answer, Leorio was the first to understand what it meant. He stood up from his seat and gestured for the two kids to do the same. "Okay, Kou, Killua we'll stay outside until Kurapika is done talking." Wanting to respect his privacy, the trio walked away, leaving only Kurapika and Gon to talk alone.

Kurapika then began to explain his real abilities. He explained that his _judgement chain_ rule was a contradiction when he pointed it at himself, so he decided to adjust the rule. _Chain jail_ was now the only chain he could use against only the Phantom Troupe whilst the _judgement chain_ can be used against anyone if the specific condition is met. The one condition to use this ability were the activation of his scarlet red eyes, and when his eyes were scarlet, he could easily use any of his abilities to their maximum potential.

"I'm not sure what half of that means, but you can use your ability on me, right?"

"Yes, that's correct!"

"Then go ahead!" Gon exclaimed, pointing towards the centre of his chest. "Choose your conditions and use your _judgement chain_ on me." Just when Kurapika was about to go ahead and insert the _Nen_ blade in Gon's body, he stopped as he noticed three people popping out from behind the sofa Gon was sitting on.

"Can you try and make three more of those?" Himeko asked with a wide grin on her face, suggesting she had been sitting there along with the other two for quite some time now.

Gon looked genuinely surprised to see them right behind him, "Kou? Killua? Leorio? What are you all doing here?"

"We had a little talk behind the scenes," Leorio answered with a big smile.

Killua continued to explain the situation, "We're a team and we're going to work together. We decided that no matter what were to happen during all this, we should all share the same fate."

"You're right about that!" Kurapika's lips managed to form a small smile too, before his red eyes returned to their original colour. "But I don't intend to use my _Nen_ blades on you all. I really appreciate your thought though, so thank you."

"But why?" Killua questioned. "We can't guarantee that we won't be caught, so you are just putting yourself in danger."

"I never intended to in the first place, I just wanted to see how strong your resolve was, that's all!" Kurapika explained, "Even if any of you end up revealing my secret, I won't regret anything. It's in these times you'll appreciate your friends the most. I trust you all." Kurapika scanned the room and smiled at everyone, placing trust an immense amount of trust in them.

Gon interrupted, "That's not fair, Kurapika!"

"What do you mean, Gon?"

Himeko understood Gon's way of thinking and answered Kurapika's question in his place, "I think he is trying to say that you are putting more pressure on us by trusting us so much."

"I intended to do that so you all work harder." Kurapika smiled, which only made Gon chuckle.

"_I don't get the joke…"_ Killua thought, looking at Gon and Kurapika who were laughing. He turned to see whether Himeko and Leorio were laughing, but they just had the same clueless expression as him. Killua sighed and just headed towards the front door. "I'm leaving!"

Seeing him make his way out, Himeko looked at the clock and back at Killua. "What? We are leaving already?"

"Yeah, just don't get in my way."

Himeko ran after Killua until she caught up, "Right back at you!"

"Good luck!" Gon shouted at them, which made Himeko turn around and wave at them. Killua just kept walking and cooly help up a thumbs up sign.

"Do you think the two of them would be able to do their job properly without arguing?" Leorio worried, watching them leave.

Gon was able to answer without thinking too much about it, "Probably not, they always find a way to end up fighting."

"You are not helping, Gon!"

"I'm sure they'll be fine, they are fully aware of the seriousness of their task," Kurapika replied with confidence, "We should worry about ourselves first."

* * *

**Replies to reviews**

**To Guest:** I hope a chapter like this is better. I tried not to leave and skip anything and I'll try to do that in future chapters too. Thanks for the feedback :)

**To German Reader:** To answer your questions, yes Himeko will set out on her own quests too, mainly because like Gon, Kurapika and Leorio, she has something she wants to do herself. Whether or not she'll fight the ants, I'll keep a secret for now until we get there. Your question will be answered in a couple chapters, or maybe more than just a couple. I'm not sure how long the sequel will be, but I have thought of two solid arcs with all the mains in it so far. I mentioned having only one arc last chapter, but I thought of another which is similar to Greed island minus the fact that they'll be _inside_ a game (if that makes sense). Well, I don't want to spoil much so I'll keep it at that. For Hisoka, Illumi and the Troupe, of course I'll include them in the sequel. I just can't get enough of the HxH villains, so I will definitely not miss them out. When and where they'll appear in the sequel, it's all up to you to find out once I release those chapters ;)

**To Arcana the wolf:** You'll just have to wait and see!


	29. Wait in the Rain

"Damn, it's pouring down outside," Himeko sighed, looking outside the window. Killua and Himeko were assigned to watch the Phantom Troupe from their hideout and update Kurapika about any strange behaviour. The pair left the room a few minutes ago and were walking down the corridors of the Hotel they were staying in.

"We'll use it as our advantage then," Killua stated, "It would be hard for them to find us in the rain. The rain will wash away our scent and will block off some sound too. As long as we use Zetsu, it will be hard for them to trace us like last time."

"That reminds me, last time when we followed Nobunaga and that pink haired girl, we were followed too but didn't Nobunaga mention something about not knowing that their comrades were following us."

"Yes, and that's why we can't lower our guard even if we have the weather on our side," He replied, "_But then again, the rain can make things hard for us too."_

"What is the likelihood for us to be followed again?"

"I'd say it's very slim. Last time, Nobunaga and the girl acted as a sort of bait to lure us out but this time they made sure to make the mafia community believe that half of the members are already dead so I doubt they'll suspect anyone following them. They'll only be cautious of Kurapika but they don't even know what he looks like," Killua explained, "Besides, you seem pretty good at using Zetsu so I wouldn't worry too much."

Himeko suddenly stopped walking and when Killua noticed that, he stopped and turned around to see what she was up to only to see her pinching herself. He continued to look at her with a '_what the fuck are you doing' _look until she looked up and saw him looking her way.

"Um.. is something wrong?"

"Just checking if this isn't a dream since you complimented me," she smiled awkwardly, "Looks like it's not a dream."

She immediately stopped pinching her arm and continued walking, and Killua waited for her to catch up before he also started walking again. They eventually reached the elevator and Killua pressed the down button. "I'm not a bad guy you know, I just happen to be very blunt most of the time."

"Yeah, I can tell. But I seriously thought you didn't like me," Himeko said as they were both waiting for the elevator to reach their floor.

"To be honest, I didn't like you at first." Killua admitted, "I don't tend to trust many people so it's only natural. It's just that you seemed very secretive about things, it made me cautious."

"So when did you decide to trust me?"

"After the Hunter Exam was over."

Himeko let out a sigh of relief when she heard his words, which only confused him. "To be honest, I didn't trust you much either at the beginning. I feel quite bad thinking back but I guess it's okay since you felt the same way about me."

"Why?"

"Trust issues, especially after you mentioned that you were an assassin. Sure, I was relieved when you said that you didn't remember killing any Inoues but that didn't really set me at ease. You could have been lying, or you could have simply not remembered but I guess I decided to trust you more after I found out that my brother was indeed alive and I found out thanks to you."

_Ding_

The elevator finally arrived, and the pair casually stepped inside and pressed the button to the bottom floor and watched the doors close.

"How about we properly introduce ourselves now that we've lifted that burden off our chests?" Himeko suggested, smiling brightly.

"What's the point, don't you consider me as a friend already?" He asked.

"Of course I do, but lets just make things official! Besides, we still have time to kill before the elevator reaches the bottom floor," she said before she reached out her hand. "Himeko Inoue, twelve years old but you can just call me Kou. Pleased to meet you."

Killua sighed before placing his hand in hers, "Killua Zoldyck, pleased to meet you too Kou."

"Okay, we are officially friends now and look you finally called me Kou for a change. You usually call me hey, you, stupid, oi, idiot, brat, flat chest and there were some others that I forgot. Oh, never mind we reached the bottom floor. Let's go!"

_Ding_

The elevator reached the bottom floor and the door opened. Himeko was the first one to head out and Killua just followed her out, "G_eez, just where do I keep finding people like her and Gon from?"_

Killua took a quick glance at the clock before they walked out of the Hotel. The weather was awful outside, it was raining cats and dogs. All they could hear was the rain hitting the floor loudly and an occasional car honking in the traffic.

"What now?" She asked.

"If the Spiders were really going to start moving out to the auction, I guess they'd do so in maybe an hour and a half. It would take us around half an hour to get to their hideout in this rain. Before we go I have somewhere to go."

"Where?"

Killua just told her to follow him since he knows what he is doing, and since he is an assassin, or was one, she decided to trust him and follow him. But that didn't exactly stop her from asking where they were heading to every few seconds, much to Killua's annoyance. To avoid getting drenched in the rain, they kept close to the shop windows that had a bit of roof to it so only half of their body got drenched.

At one point, the pair arrived in front of what seemed to be a clothing store and when Killua looked back at Himeko, she just gave him a look of disapproval, "Out of all people, I didn't expect you to mess around at a time like this."

"Did you seriously want to wear _that _for god knows how many hours we are going to stand outside?" He asked, "We can't predict how long we are going to stay out in the rain so we might as well go prepared and buy something waterproof to wear."

With no further delay, Killua opened the door and walked in and kept the door open waiting for Himeko to enter. As soon as they walked in, the store clerk ran up to them. The store seemed pretty much lifeless, probably due to the rain. Shopping was the last thing on people's minds in this weather so she didn't have any customers for a while.

"Can I help you?" She beamed, "Would you like a dress, young lady? We have a wonderful selection of clothes for girls your age so you I'm sure you'll find something in the-"

"Could you show us the rainproof clothes in our size?" Killua interrupted.

She took a moment to process what happened and to ask herself whether this twelve year old brat just interrupted her, however she did not give up there. She immediately smiled again, "Sure, please go this way." She used her hands to gesture them towards the right and waited for the pair to walk ahead before she decided to join them.

Killua of course walked ahead without wasting his breath on the store clerk, but at least Himeko showed her appreciation by slightly bowing her head and thanking her. The store clerk then showed them towards a corner at the back where they had the children coats.

"For you young lady, we have this popular set that's in this beautiful peach colour. I'm sure it will go we-"

Killua interrupted her again, "Not interested. Show us something that is has more of a camouflaging colour."

"_This little brat…" _she cursed, before fixing her smile again. "Unfortunately we don't have anything like that for girls, we do have those in the boys section."

Killua turned to Himeko, "You don't mind wearing something from the boys section, do you?"

"Not at all, they are just clothes after all," she answered coolly.

"In that case, please come this way," she said as she led them a few metres towards the left where there were boys coats and jackets.

Killua immediately stepped forward and scanned through the selection while Himeko and the store clerk remained behind. He picked out a set consisting of a raincoat and waterproof trousers. "Do you have these in any smaller sizes?"

"Unfortunately, those are the smallest sizes we have right now," she replied, hoping Killua doesn't insult her any further. "I'm sure those would fit you though."

"Of course they'll fit me, we need another set for her," he said.

"That's why we have the girls section…"

Killua sighed, "Do I really have to explain everything all over again for you to understand? For a grown up you are pretty stupid."

"_This little-"_

Noticing the the store clerk grow impatient, Himeko stepped in and took the set off him, "I'll try it on. It might actually fit since I'm only a few inches shorter than you."

Himeko wasted no time and stepped into the changing room. She was too afraid to leave Killua alone with the store clerk, not because of Killua but because of the store clerk. She might end up developing some sort of nen all of the sudden and beat the shit out of Killua if he opened his mouth once more. She looked into the mirror and the clothes were indeed too loose on her but she didn't have the luxury to complain. She could either wear her own clothes and freeze to death in the rain, wear a bright coloured raincoat and get spotted immediately or wear a baggy, oversized set of clothes for a couple of hours and deal with it. The last option sounded the most appealing.

She opened the door and stepped out, "It's a little big but I'll live."

"Seriously, do you still need someone to do everything for you?" Killua asked. "If the sleeves are too big then you can just roll them up, here let me do it for you."

The store clerk watched as Killua helped her roll the sleeves of her jacket up, "_What's wrong with this kid, he has serious mood swings."_

"For your trousers, you can just pull the up higher and tie them if they are too long," he told her after he finished.

"Gee, thanks mum!" Himeko teased.

"Give me a minute, I'll change too. We are already behind schedule because of this useless store clerk."

The store clerk watched Killua make his way inside the changing room and clenched her fists, as she cursed at Killua in her head, "_Wait you brat, if I ever run into you outside work you are dead."_

"Don't worry, he is always like that," Himeko whispered over to her with a smile, "If not you, then he'd be arguing with me instead."

The store clerk just groaned as she rubbed her temples in annoyance, waiting for Killua to step out and complain again. Surprisingly, when he stepped out he didn't complain. He was satisfied that it fit him so there wasn't exactly much he could complain about.

"We'll take these two sets then," Killua declared as he walked towards the counter.

"_YES!"_ The store clerk celebrated inside her head, "_Just pay and leave!"_

The store clerk rushed to the counter and pressed buttons on her till, "That would be 4000 Jenny."

"4000?!" Killua questioned, "For two low quality sets of clothes? You didn't even have the right size for one!"

"Please, just give me 1000 and leave," she begged as she hit her head against the counter.

"_Is she going to be alright?"_ Himeko worried.

Killua put his hand in his pocket and got out a few notes before handing it to her and walking out of the store as if nothing happened.

"Excuse me, sorry about what happened," Himeko apologised before she followed Killua out of the store. "_Never would have guessed that I'd get kicked out of a store like this."_

After hearing the door shut, the store clerk raised her head and started to count the notes Killua had given to her only to be surprised.

...

With rainproof clothes on, the pair were finally able to walk around in the rain without getting drenched so they started running towards their destination. It was hard running through the city, mainly due to the crowd of people walking on the sidewalk but once they got through the city things got a lot easier.

"Zetsu." Once they reached the outskirts of the city, Killua thought it was the perfect time for them to activate Zetsu and Himeko followed his example.

"We have roughly five hours left until the auctions," Himeko informed him after looking at the time on her phone.

"That means they'll move out soon if they are actually going to the auction," he added, "Let's move fast, we can't afford to waste anymore time."

"Right!"

The pair ran through the deep woods that were on the outskirts of the city, leading to the hideout. They eventually reached the wired fence and carefully climbed over it.

"If it keeps raining, they'll have a hard time finding us so let's hope that it stays that way," Killua hoped, looking up at the grey sky. He knew it was going to pour down for a couple of hours just by looking at the sky.

"Well, at least we are prepared," Himeko reminded him by pointing at her raincoat, "Still can't believe you got these for only 1000 jenny."

"I didn't, I paid the full price." He stated.

"Eh, stop lying! I know you, you are so stingy. You wouldn't pay the full price even if your life depended on it."

"I felt sorry for her in the end, so I just gave her the 4,000," he explained before he looked up only to be surprised to see what was in front of him. "What the-"

When Himeko saw that Killua stopped walking, she stopped too and looked up only to be surprised to what lied in front of her. "I hope I'm not hallucinating!"

"You remember there only being one building here too, right?" Killua asked.

"Yes, just one," she nodded, "Are you sure you didn't get us lost?"

"Don't be ridiculous, I'm not you to get lost all the time."

"What are we supposed to do now? We'll be wasting time if we check all of them."

"No, only one of them is the real one. The others are definitely traps, so we shouldn't go anywhere near them." Killua looked around the area and spotted another abandoned building in the distance, "There, we'll keep a watch from over there until we figure out what to do next."

The pair ran to the abandoned building in the neighbourhood and headed to the roof to keep a watch from there.

"Any luck?" Killua asked.

"No, they all look the same. No point playing any more rounds of spot the difference," she sighed, "Did you have any luck?"

"I tried using Gyo, but I had no luck either. They are all identical copies." Killua admitted, trying again. "_Damn it, they were cautious about us all along. Which building is the original?"_

"It's one of their Nen abilities, right?" Himeko asked, "I think this is the technique they used to fake the corpses last night."

"Yeah, it's probably a conjurer." Killua deduced, "We are in no position to be guessing, we'll be spotted if we set foot into the wrong building."

"They'll have a time limit in that case, right?"

"Yes, but we can't just depend on a time limit. We are dealing with advance Nen users, so who knows how long they can keep these up. These could wait for days and we could still be sitting here," Killua was starting to lose his cool. They were too far away to be keeping a close eye on every single building and the Phantom Troupe could be leaving for the auction sooner than expected. "_Worse case scenario, we'll run into one of the members while staying here."_

"Killua, calm down!" Himeko snapped him out of his thoughts as she started to notice him sweating. "We'll find a way out so just calm down and keep an eye out for anything abnormal. I'll update Kurapika on what's happening."

Killua nodded before he turned back to look out for anything odd going on around the buildings while Himeko took out her phone and started to call Kurapika. Kurapika immediately picked up knowing the phone call was from her.

"Kurapika?"

_"What is the situation there?"_

"Very bad," she said bluntly, which only made Kurapika worry more. "I'll keep it short, once Killua and I reached their hideout, we found multiple copies of the building. Fifty to be exact."

_"Fifty?"_

"Yes, it's probably the work of one of the members. Killua suspects that it's a conjurer."

_"Where are you two right now?"_

"We are keeping watch from an abandoned building in the neighbourhood, but no matter how hard we try we just can't figure out which one is the real building. Killua tried using Gyo too, but he had no luck either."

_"This must be the same ability used to make the fake corpses from yesterday."_

"We suspect so too, but that's not why I called. I want you to tell me what to do next, it's too risky to get any closer than we are already."

Kurapika thought for a moment before answering, _"Don't move from where you are right now. Give me five minutes and I'll call you back."_

"Okay."

With that, Kurapika cut the call. Kurapika, Gon and Leorio also left the Hotel and were driving around the city waiting for updates on the Phantom Troupe. However, hearing the updates from Himeko made his plans a lot more complicated than he first thought. He had to rely on more people to get his plan to work. He could only think of one person that could help them out of the situation and tried to contact them.

"He'll call back?" Killua asked when she returned to her position.

"Yes, he told me to give him five minutes. He sounds like he has some sort of plan."

"Keep your eyes open for anything," Killua reminded her, "The fact that they went through the trouble of creating so many fakes means that they still have to be here somewhere. It also means that they are getting pretty desperate."

"The rain isn't exactly helping. If only it didn't rain then we could have heard a couple of footsteps or voices. It could have narrowed the location down."

"There is no point complaining now, they are using the rain to their advantage just like we planned to use it."

Five minutes later, Himeko received a phone call from Kurapika just as they expected. Killua leaned in to listen to the phone conversation.

"Hello?"

_"Kou, I've talked to a colleague of mine. She agreed to help you, so she should be there soon."_

"Does she know where we are?"

_"Don't worry, she will have no problem finding you._"

"Okay, we will contact you again when she arrives."

The call cut again.

"A colleague?" Killua asked, "He is starting to sound more desperate to capture that Pakunoda woman."

"Because he is starting to ask for help?"

"Yeah, he was so against the idea at the start. He didn't allow us to participate and now he is asking not just us but his co-workers for help too."

"I don't think it's a bad thing. This way, we'll be able stop him from doing anything reckless and we can keep him safe too."

"You do realise that Kurapika is stronger than us, so us protecting him isn't going to be of much use to him."

That's when she realised, "Oh yeah!"

Killua just sighed.

"But it's just that he wants to do things on his own, I can't help but worry. Boys are very reckless, you included."

"Me," he asked, "What did I do?"

"You told us to go away when we came to Kukuroo mountain."

"That's because you have no chance against my family. I was facing my own problems and didn't want any of you to get involved."

"That's where you are wrong, you should try and talk to someone when something's bugging you. It helps!"

"Okay, in that case answer this question!" Killua said, "If you ever find yourself in a dangerous situation alone, would you rely on us?"

"A dangerous situation?"

"What if you found out whoever murdered you clan, will you go after them alone or would you want to get us involved?"

"I wouldn't want to get any of you involved in something like that, but I wouldn't want to keep any of you in the dark about it either."

"It's the same with the rest of us, but we keep quiet to keep people like you and Gon from sticking your noses into the problem. Kurapika tried to keep quiet but now that we got involved in his problems, he is allowing us to stick around and help him finish what he started."

"Are you sure you are the same age as me, you are starting to sound like a grandpa with a lot of life experience."

"That's because you just lack common sense sometimes."

"Okay then, enough of the past!" She announced, "Next time something is bugging you, you _have_ to tell me! In return, I'll tell you whatever bugs me when I have a problem."

"That's stupid, I don't want you to come crying to me with all your little problems. You'll probably end up having some kind of boy issue in the future and dump it all on me."

"Enough input from you, it's a promise then!"

"I didn't promise anything."

"I know that you'll tell me anyway. You can rely on me if you need a shoulder to cry on, you know if a girl dumps you or anything."

"Be quiet, it's your turn to keep watch."

"Roger, Captain!"

With that, Himeko stood up and started watching the Troupe's hideout. Killua took a turn to sit out and waited for a call from Kurapika's colleague. However, the phone was quiet and there was no sight of her. Himeko also couldn't spot any movement from the Troupe members which was frustrating. She wished that they'd at least have a clue to which direction they might be in.

The rain wasn't helping the situation either. At first, they were confident that the weather would be on their side but that was a great miscalculation and that confidence backfired. The spiders were using the rain to stay hidden and the sound of the rain blocked of any possible clues they could have found about the Troupe's whereabouts. The wind wasn't helping either. It was blowing against them along with the raindrops that were now hitting against her face, making it hard for her to even see anything. Eventually, the wind blew her hood off.

"_Why is it so windy all of the sudden?"_ She wondered, trying to keep her hood up in position. Killua noticed her struggle against the wind, and saw her hair fly in all kinds of directions. He instinctively reached out to touch a strand of her hair, and she noticed it and turned to look at him.

"Sorry, I just felt like it," Killua apologised as he retracted his hand, "Your hair has gotten longer."

"Yeah, I thought of changing my look up a bit so I grew it out but I never knew that it could be so much work to maintain," she complained as she stared at a strand with a few split ends.

"Just cut it again, it's going to get in your way when you fight," he told her bluntly, "Besides, short hair suits you better."

"_What?" _She asked herself as he stared at Killua who was avoiding any eye contact. He eventually stretched and stood back up.

"Forget what I said. It's my turn to keep watch again, so sit back down!" He ordered.

"But I just started a few minutes ago."

He pushed her down by her shoulders, "Then you lost track of time, it's my turn."

Himeko sat back down obediently while Killua decided to keep watch again.

"Hey Killua, what are you going to do if Gon finds his father?" The question caught Killua off guard because honestly, he hadn't thought that far ahead yet. She did have a point, Gon's clue was Greed Island so what would happen if he finds his father in the game. He didn't want to go back home, he wanted to stick around with Gon until he finds something he truly wanted to do himself.

"I don't know myself. Gon and I might agree to help you find your brother if you want?"

"Really? You'd do that?"

"Gon doesn't seem to have anything else planned after finding his father, so we might decide to accompany you."

Before Himeko could open her mouth again, he suddenly spotted someone in another neighbouring building and told Himeko to keep quiet, "What's wrong?"

"There is someone over there." He informed her before they heard Himeko's phone ring. It was an unknown number. She picked up.

"Hello?"

"_I'm Kurapika's colleague, I'm standing on the roof of the neighbouring building to yours. I can see you."_

"Can you somehow prove to us that you are the person standing there?"

"_One of you can whisper out a command."_

Himeko looked up at Killua and told him to whisper a command. As soon as he did, he received a response which surprised him.

"What is it Killua?"

"She raised her right hand just like I told her to."

"_Even I couldn't hear what Killua said and I'm sitting right next to him…"_ Himeko thought.

"_Hello?"_

"Yes, please make your way to our building. We will be waiting." With that, Himeko cut the phone and informed Killua that the woman will come and join them in a bit. They both waited and kept their eyes on the door, waiting for her arrival.

"She's coming," Killua informed her when he heard the door open. A short, stocky woman in disguise stepped foot onto the roof and shut the door behind her. She introduced herself as Melody, one of Neon Nostrade's bodyguard and Kurapika's co-worker.

"How were you able to find us?" Killua asked.

"I could hear a young, female voice talking." She answered looking at Himeko. She then looked at Killua who was giving her a look of disapproval.

"Oops, was I really talking that much_?"_ She thought out loud and Killua just responded to the question by letting out a sigh.

"Even if she wasn't talking, I would have been able to find you two just by the sound of any movement or your heartbeats," she explained.

"So you can help us find them?"

She walked towards the edge of the roof and listened closely, "I can hear maybe five or six footsteps, including women. They are coming from far back. They are talking about something, but I can't make out too much of it because of the rain."

Killua and Himeko tried their best to listen too, but all they could hear was the rain hitting the concrete. "Your hearing is impressive," Killua complimented her, "We trained a lot over the past couple of months but we couldn't hear a thing."

"It's my ability after all." Melody smiled at them.

"Shall we follow them?" Himeko asked.

"Yes, let's go. They are heading towards the city."

* * *

**A/n -** On a scale from 1-10, how fun would it be to go shopping with Killua. Now on a scale from 1-10, how fun would it be to have a customer like Killua xD

P.s sorry for the lame chapter, I suck at writing fluff. Sorry for the amount of dialogue in this too, Himeko just can't shut up sometimes xD

Also, I know I just updated like yesterday but yeah I wrote this out too last week and all I had to do was pretty much edit it before releasing this chapter.


	30. Cut to the Chase

"_How long are we going to keep running?"_ Himeko thought as she sighed.

Melody turned to her. "Is anything the matter?"

"Oh, not at all!"

"You are lying," Melody smiled.

"You could tell?"

"So you were lying…" Killua remarked, still amazed by Melody's ability.

"Well, we were running for so long so I thought how long we are going to keep running," Himeko admitted. "But how could you tell?"

"Your heart beat," Melody answered. "I could hear a change in rhythm in your heart beat."

"That's amazing!" Killua commented.

"But Kurapika must be really desperate to ask me for help," Melody said. "He usually likes doing things alone."

"The reason he asked you for help means that he considers you as a friend. He must really trust you!" Himeko smiled, "Besides, I'm glad he decided to involve us. We can keep an eye on him this way and prevent him from doing anything stupid!"

"_What an honest girl," _Melody smiled back. "Your footsteps; are you perhaps from an upper social class?"

"My footsteps?" Himeko tilted her head in confusion.

"They are quite soft and graceful. Your posture is also really good."

"_Wow, this woman knows everything!"_ Himeko thought, "_Better be careful, otherwise knowing me I'll end up spilling something really important."_

Melody then turned to Killua, "You must be an assassin. You are running right next to me, but your footsteps are estinto."

"Es - what?"

"Estinto, it's a musical term for a sound that is barely audible," she explained.

"Well, I used to be an assassin but not anymore," Killua said, "It's become a habit for me to take quiet steps."

"You've got the quietest steps I've ever heard."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Your ability is amazing!" Himeko complimented.

"I'm not the amazing one," she smiled in return, "I can see why Kurapika can rely you both."

Hearing her words, Himeko got a little flustered and started smiling to herself, "I guess I can live with that."

Melody smiled at her, "Oh? Really?"

They were running down the dark alley way until Melody stopped them. She was listening closely for any more signs of the Phantom Troupe members, and Himeko and Killua were intently staring at her waiting for her tell them.

"One hundred metres around the corner, they are here," she informed them. While her and Himeko were staring at the corner, Killua looked around and headed towards the closest building. He started climbing the building and slowly reached the rooftop.

"Where are you going?" Himeko asked when she first noticed him climbing up the building.

"I'm taking a look, stay here!"

Killua reached the rooftop and looked around the main road where the he saw five familiar figures walking. The Troupe was casually walking down the street, blending in with the crowd. He spotted a man whom he hadn't seen before leading the group making it six in total. He took out his phone and dialled Gon's number waiting for him to pick up.

_"Killua?"_

"We've spotted the woman. She is walking with five other members including the guy with the top knot."

_"Oh, great…"_ Gon wasn't too pleased to hear the news of Nobunaga being amongst the crowd.

"There is another guy there who wasn't in the hideout the other day. He must be the leader."

_"Can you describe him?"_

"He is wearing a long, black coat with a St. Peter's cross on the back. I can't see his face, but he has black hair that is combed back."

_"Is there anything else?"_

"No, I can't get closer. They are too alert, I'm worried that they might spot us if we get closer."

In the car, Kurapika asked Gon to hand the phone over to him.

_"Where are you right now, Killua?"_

"Motoba building. They are walking west, down the Continental street."

_"There is a train station. Do you think you'll be able to get into the same train as them?"_

"It depends on the situation. If the train is busy enough for us to not be noticed, then we'll get in."

After cutting the call, Kurapika instructed Leorio to drive towards south so they can try and catch the Troupe before they get off the train while Killua got back down the building and told Melody and Himeko the plan. They were to follow the Troupe from a safe distance and see if they can get into the same train as them. Luckily, it was rush hour and due to people heading back home from work the station was busy and the train they were able to get into was crowded. Not wanting to risk anything, Killua and Himeko got into the last carriage while Melody was keeping watch from the same carriage as them. Kurapika was getting updates from Killua while Himeko was watching out for any signs from Melody.

"The train is heading towards Castor, we managed to get into the last carriage."

"The auction site is that way," Leorio pointed out as he was driving along the highway.

"Yeah, and so is our hotel…" Kurapika added.

The wait seemed longer than it actually was while the three were waiting for the Troupe to keep moving. Killua kept Kurapika on the line to keep updating him on anything important while Himeko looked out for any signs from Melody. Eventually, the Troupe started moving out of their carriage and Melody made sure to inform Himeko before she kept moving.

"Okay, we'll meet you outside," Himeko put her phone back into her jacket pocket after ending the call. "Killua, they are on the move. Inform Kurapika!"

"Did you hear that?" Killua asked over the phone, "They are on the move, we are getting out of the carriage!"

The pair moved out of the carriage and met up with Melody at the exit, while Leorio parked the car near the station.

"Don't you want me to get closer?" Leorio asked.

"No, I'm sure they'll sense me," Kurapika said, "I have to attack from here in order to be unnoticed. I need around half a second for the attack, so there is more than enough time to evade."

Gon kept a close eye on the station, waiting for the Troupe to exit. They spotted a man that fit Killua's description walk out of the station followed by five of the members they could recognise. The Troupe stopped walking and stood by the entrance, talking about something. They turned to the left and started running.

"They are moving towards the hotel!" Kurapika pointed out, "They are fast, we have to go after them before we lose them."

"Can you follow them by car?" Gon asked.

"It's rush hour, it would be impossible to get through all this traffic!"

After Leorio finished his sentence, he turn to Kurapika who was sitting in the passenger seat besides him to ask him for the plan but the door was left open and Kurapika was gone. They looked outside to see him running after the Troupe members.

"Stay there until I contact you," he shouted loud enough for Gon and Leorio to hear. Before Kurapika was out of sight, Gon also rushed out of the car.

"Wait, I've got an idea!" He yelled after Kurapika, "Kurapika, wait for me!"

...

"_Ah, my phone,"_ Killua thought as he heard his phone ringing. As expected, it was Kurapika.

_"Killua, where are you three?"_

"In front of the station. The six of them headed north-west."

_"Okay, I'm heading after them."_

"You are what?!" Killua exclaimed, catching the attention of Himeko and Melody. "They are going to notice you if you go after them."

_"I'll contact you later!"_

"Wait, don't go after them," before he finished his sentence, Kurapika cut the call on him. "Damn it, that bastard cut the phone on me!"

"Kurapika ran after them?!" Himeko exclaimed, after listening into the conversation.

"Yes!"

"What the hell are we waiting for then, we have to run after them," she said before she headed north-west; after the Troupe, Kurapika and Gon.

Killua watched her run before he let out a loud, frustrated groan, "I'm surrounded by idiots! These people just do whatever the hell they want."

With no other choice left, he ran after her with Melody right behind. He phoned Leorio wanting to update him on the situation only to find out that he was stuck in heavy traffic and that Gon left to chase after Kurapika.

Gon managed to catch up with Kurapika and the pair were chasing after the Troupe members. Knowing that they were followed, Chrollo ordered Nobunaga, Kortopi and Pakunoda to go after the moving vehicle they were chasing while he stayed behind with Machi and Shizuku. He stopped running abruptly with the two women by his side and walked back, wanting to see who was following them.

Gon and Kurapika who sensed them splitting up and coming back decided to split up and hide before they could spot them. Gon managed to hide himself behind a dumpster on the street while Kurapika fled and hid in an alleyway. As the Troupe got closer, Gon noticed that Kurapika struggled to control his urge to attack.

"_Stop Kurapika, there are three of them," _Gon's eyes were on Kurapika, hoping that he won't do anything stupid. Seeing Kurapika get worse by the second, he started to worry more until he saw a familiar figure standing right behind Kurapika. "_I have to do something!"_

Before Kurapika could do something reckless, Gon stepped out onto the street from behind the dumpster and faced the Troupe face to face.

"Sorry," he apologised with a childish smile, "I'll stop following you if you don't do anything to me."

The three Phantom members got closer to Gon and only Machi seemed to remember him, "Him again?"

"Is this the boy Nobunaga was talking about?" Chrollo asked.

Machi turned towards the alleyway, "There should be two more, come out and show yourselves."

They waited patiently for Himeko and Killua to walk out of the alleyway and join Gon.

"Why are you still after us?" Machi asked, "The mafia took the bounty off our heads."

According to Machi, they didn't seem to have noticed Kurapika who was also after them. He was listening into the conversation, still hiding in the alleyway with Melody. This was the perfect opportunity for them to play along with what Machi has started.

"What? Really?" Killua sighed in a frustrated voice.

"_Right, the children act!" _Himeko remembered, "Eh? So we came all this way in the rain for nothing?"

Chrollo took a good look at the three children in front of them, and Machi and Shizuku were waiting for his decision. "Tie them up."

Machi used her Nen threads to tie them up while Chrollo took out his phone and called one of the other Troupe members, instructing them to come to the Beitacle Hotel where he was going to head to.

"Shouldn't we just get rid of them right here and now?" Machi asked as she finished tying Gon up.

"No, I trust your instincts," Chrollo told her, "I have a feeling that they are somehow related to the chain user."

"I wouldn't go as far as trusting my instincts that much…"

"How can you kill people you don't even know? Why do you do it?" Gon asked Chrollo. He took a good look at the leader of the notorious group who was staring right back at him. He was unfazed and Chrollo was impressed by this.

"You look pretty hostile for someone who has just surrendered," Chrollo pointed out looking at Gon, but Gon was still not frightened by his words which caused him to answer his question.

Chrollo's answer was vague, it sounded as if he had no idea why he was killing and stealing from people either. It seemed as if he himself wasn't sure of the answer and the question made him wonder. He said that he wasn't fond of his choices, but that it was the key to discovering who he truly was.

"_What's up with these people,"_ Himeko asked herself, "_Even their leader has a screw loose!"_

Himeko wasn't the only one who seemed confused, Killua was wondering what he meant too and Gon was also trying to figure out what he meant.

"Take them to the hotel, Phinks and the others will be there," Chrollo ordered.

"Yes."

With his order, they slowly headed towards the Hotel to meet up with the remaining members along with Gon, Himeko and Killua who they took hostage.

Seeing them walk away, Kurapika and Melody who were still listening in came out of the alleyway and were getting ready to pursue them when Melody stopped him. She reminded him to stay calm and stop acting so reckless, because if he were to get caught then there would be no one left to stop them. Gon stepped out and faced the Troupe because he knew that if he didn't, then Kurapika wouldn't have snapped out of it. He had to calm down and think of a new plan. After listening to Melody, he finally calmed down and apologised promising that he'll be more patient. He decided to follow the Troupe to the hotel, trying to stay close to them to get any information on the other members' whereabouts.

After a while, Chrollo got a call from Nobunaga's group that set out to chase after a car with a pair or the Scarlet eyes. They informed him that they did not find the chain user, but the identity of the chain user. Chrollo informed them to come to the Hotel where they'd meet up.

They eventually reached the hotel and stayed close to one of the pillars at the centre of the front lobby. Machi was holding both Gon and Killua while Shizuku made sure that Himeko didn't escape. The Troupe was too alert, and there was no way that they'd escape without being killed. They were keeping an eye on anyone that entered and exited the building.

_"I hope Kurapika and Melody made it here before us,"_ Killua was deep in thoughts when he was interrupted by a loud, obnoxious voice. It didn't just catch his attention, the members of the Troupe also turned their attention towards where the sound was coming from.

"Hey, do you even realise what time it is?! Idiot, how many times do you want me to repeat myself? It's Beitacle Hotel!" Hearing Leorio shouting over the phone gave Gon, Himeko and Leorio a sense of relief. For the first time, they were actually glad to hear his loud voice.

Leorio looked up at the kids and the members staring, "What the hell are you looking at?"

"_Hey calm it Leorio, you don't want to get yourself killed," _Himeko thought, hoping he wouldn't provoke the Troupe.

"Ignore him, he is probably a drunk," Chrollo instructed the rest of his members. Leorio kept looking around and shouting at the guests around him telling them to stop staring.

"_Does he want an Oscar award for his performance or something?" _Himeko thought again, watching him shout at the staff.

"Damn, my future is _dark_ because of the failures working for me. Listen, I will _close_ my eyes this one time and pretend nothing happened but one more mistake and you'll get it!"

Leorio put emphasis on certain words, trying to not make it seem to obvious, but the message hit them. They understood that it was a message for them.

"Seven on the dot, you better be here at the hotel," Leorio continued his act before putting the phone down and picking up a newspaper.

"_Seven o'clock, we'll use the darkness as our advantage!" _The trio thought insync. They peeked at the clock; three minutes were left. Killua tried to loosen Machi's threads, his eyes won't need much time to adjust to the dark but he knew that was the perfect opportunity to escape from Machi's grip as they needed time to adjust to the darkness.

Shizuku looked towards the entrance, "They are back!"

"_Oh great, I thought it couldn't get any worse!" _Himeko thought as she took a glance of who just arrived.

Nobunaga, Pakunoda and Kortopi just arrived at the Hotel and surprisingly, Nobunaga was more than happy to see his comrade's hostages, "You got caught again?" He questioned, "Oh, I understand! You changed your minds about joining us."

"We just didn't know about the reward being withdrawn," Killua interrupted his parade.

"So you screwed up stalking us again?" He asked, "You guys never learn, but on the other hand this must be the work of fate."

"Didn't you hear them, old man?" Himeko interrupted, "We came here simply because we had our eyes set on the reward. I don't even want to see your faces again!"

"Arw, how adorable," Nobunaga said sarcastically before patting her head with some force, "But I'm not exactly old, I'm just a little older than everyone else here!"

"Hmph!" She turned her head away and closed her eyes, "Whatever, I don't want to see any of you again."

"You are going to break her neck if you keep doing that," Shizuku pointed out, making Nobunaga stop and look over at Gon and Killua in Machi's grips, who followed her example and used the opportunity to close their eyes.

"Don't you like them boss, they have the exact same sass as Uvo!"

"They are kids," Machi reminded him, "Of course they'd be like this!"

Chrollo wasn't satisfied with the whole 'they are just kids' thing the trio were trying to pull, he knew something was odd about them and he knew they were hiding something.

"They are hiding something," Chrollo pointed out, "Paku, try and search their memories again."

Pakunoda obeyed her leader's words and reached out towards Killua in front of her. There was one minute left.

"_One minute, we have to distract her for one more minute!"_

"It's no use," Killua stopped her. "We know that you can only extract certain bits of a person's-"

Without hesitation, she grabbed him by his mouth to stop him from talking. "Be quiet!"

"He is right!" Gon added, "All we have to do is think about something else."

She was growing fed up with the two boys and grabbed Gon using her free hand to shut him up too. "My questions can stimulate your memories, there is no use deceiving me. It won't work."

"What's the point? You've already searched our memories yesterday, you already know all you need to know. Just let us go!" Himeko pointed out, "_Three, two, one."_

_'Thank you for listening to HxH FM, it is now 7PM.'_

The radio channel announced the time. It was time for the lights to turn off soon.

"Be quiet," she snapped at Himeko, and Shizuku made sure to hold her mouth closed to prevent her from interrupting Pakunoda again. "Now, what are you hiding from me?"

She was able to ask the question a moment before the lights switched off and she got a look at the truth about Kurapika in their memories. However, she stopped as she was taken back by the sudden black out and waited for her eyes to adjust. Killua opened his eyes and used this opportunity to free himself from Machi's Nen threads and before attacking Pakunoda. Gon whose eyes were also able to adjust also kicked free from Pakunoda's grip. Himeko used the back of her head to hit Shizuku's chin and bit her hand before she broke free of her grip. Machi who wasn't able to see yet got attacked by Killua but she managed to trap him with her abdominal muscles. Nobunaga used his En to guide him through the dark and was able to catch Gon and Himeko.

"Give up!" He told them, "It was a good shot, but not good enough."

"Boss, what do you want us to do next?" Pakunoda asked, but as soon as their eyes adjusted to the darkness they gasped as their leader was no where to be found. They looked around the lobby for any possible clues and Nobunaga was able to spot a note.

"Shizuku, hold these two for me." He said before handing Gon and Himeko over to her and picking up the note.

"Paku, are you okay?" Machi asked Pakunoda who seemed to struggle a little getting back up.

"The kid managed to break my hand and my molar," she informed them, "But that's not important, these kids are-"

Before she could finish her sentence, Nobunaga handed her the note after reading it, "Paku, this note is for you."

_'Discuss their memories, and I'll kill him.'_

Pakunoda realised that Kurapika was in the lobby the whole time disguised as one of the receptionists. He used the opportunity to get hold of Chrollo and escaped along with Leorio who made a ruckus earlier. She was in no position to tell her comrades about anything. She understood that Kurapika was no one to mess around with, he was cautious and smart and the fact that he spend a few seconds writing the note and leaving it there meant that he wasn't bluffing either. It also meant that Gon, Killua and Himeko were valuable hostages to them.

Nobunaga snapped her out of her thoughts and ordered her not to say a word about Kurapika to anyone. To him, their boss' safety was top priority. He called Phinks and let them know of their boss' situation.

...

With Chrollo as their hostage, Leorio was driving far away from the Hotel. Kurapika tried to control his urge to crush him with his chains but in the end, he just sat there besides him in silence. Neither Leorio nor Melody were making a sound, sensing the tension inside the car.

"What are you looking at?" Kurapika asked Chrollo who was staring at him.

"I would have never guessed that the chain user was actually a woman."

"That's because I'm not a woman," he said as he took his wig off, "You should stop letting appearances fool you."

"You won't kill me," Chrollo said, unfazed by the fact that he was chained up, "You left your friends behind."

"Watch your words, I'm not composed enough to put up with you!"

"Kurapika, stop it." Leorio cut in, watching the tension build up in the back seats.

"This encounter wasn't mentioned in the girl's fortune, it's not of much importance I guess." Chrollo continued to wind Kurapika up, "I'll consider this as a peaceful outing."

"You bastard…." Kurapika's eyes turned scarlet and he clenched tightly onto the chain that was wrapped around his hostage's body.

"Kurapika!" Melody tried to calm him down again.

Not knowing how to hold his anger back, Kurapika landed a strong punch on Chrollo's face.

"Kurapika, stop it!" Leorio shouted, "We are on equal footing anyways. Leave him be."

"Equal footing?" Chrollo questioned. He smiled as he began to explain how wrong their assumptions were. Chrollo was indeed an important member of the Phantom Troupe but he had always told his members to abandon him if this kind of situation were to happen. To him, the Troupe will be able to cope even without him, making him useless as a hostage and Kurapika in a big mess.

...

Back at the hotel, the lights finally switched on again and Phinks walked into the lobby along with Shalnark and Feitan. Nobunaga finished explaining what he started over the phone.

"The lights went off and the boss was taken in that instance."

"Why didn't you chase after them?" Feitan asked.

"Machi and Paku were injured."

"So?"

"The chain user has partners that are pro Hunters."

"So?"

Nobunaga snapped, "Take a hint already and read between the lines!" He continued to explain the situation after handing the note from Kurapika to Phinks, "He was captured with the same chains that he used to capture Uvo, so it will be hard for him to escape. At least we have these kids who are valuable hostages."

"How about we try to figure out a plan?" Shalnark suggested, "If they are valuable hostages, then the chain user will contact us soon."

Just that moment, Phinks' phone rang. He took it out of his pocket and was surprised, "It's from the boss. Hello?"

_"I have three demands,"_ Kurapika was on the other side of the line.

"Chain user?"

_"If you do not obey these demands, I won't hesitate to kill your leader. One, do not follow me. Two, do not harm any of the three hostages. Three, put that Pakunoda woman on the phone."_

A smug grin appeared on Phinks' face as he peered towards their hostages,_ "About the second demand; the hostages put up a struggle so we decided to break some of their bones."_

_"Then we are done talking. Good bye."_

Kurapika cut the call and Phinks ran back immediately.

_"What do you want?"_

"Sorry, I was lying."

_"This is your last chance, don't fool around and hand the phone over to Pakunoda."_

As soon as he handed over the phone to Pakunoda, he received a beating from both Machi and Nobunaga for fooling around. Kurapika instructed Pakunoda to move away from her comrades so they don't hear about the deal. Knowing about Melody's abilities, Pakunoda agreed to all the conditions set by Kurapika and agreed to not communicate with her comrades in any way.

"Do you understand?" Kurapika asked after he finished negotiating, "Now hand the phone to someone besides the previous man."

She called Nobunaga over and Kurapika instructed him to head back to the hideout. He warned that if all ten members are not at the hideout, he would kill Chrollo at an instant. After he was done, he asked to put Pakunoda back on the phone to tell her the location and time and warned her once more to come along.

Pakunoda left the hotel without a word and Nobunaga returned to his comrades and told them to return to the hideout. Phinks, Feitan and Shalnark disagreed with Nobunaga's decision leading to a fight amongst the members. Machi agreed with Nobunaga and suggested that they should respect Pakunoda's decision and trust her to deal with it herself but Phinks insisted that they should follow her not wanting to involve any more members in this conflict. Shizuku interrupted the fight by knocking Nobunaga out cold, reminding everyone to stick to the rules and stop fighting amongst each other.

Shalnark received a call from Chrollo's phone, and after reading the caller ID he passed the phone to Phinks to answer. "Hello?"

_"Pass the phone to one of the hostages!"_

"_Why you little…" _Phinks held the phone by Killua's ear.

"Kurapika?"

_"Are the members all together?"_

"Yes, Pakunoda just left but the other members want to go after her."

Phinks immediately snatched the phone away, "Watch your words, kid!"

He heard Kurapika's words from the other side of the line, _"I'm warning you once again. Don't try to use any of your trickery on me, I will know. It would be best for both you and your boss for you all to head back to your hideout."_

With that, Kurapika cut the call once again and the Troupe decided that it was best to move retreat for now.

...

Pakunoda eventually arrived at the airport just like Kurapika told her to. He proposed her with a deal. He started listing the conditions to the deal. Firstly, she must not use her nen but Kurapika struggled on the second condition. He had Chrollo right next to him and he could effortlessly crush his to death, but was that really what he wanted?

He remembered why he was doing this in the first place. Destroying the head of the spider's, that wouldn't do him any good. The spider will keep moving without it's head, so was there really a point to him killing him. Moreover, could he really put vengeance in front of his friends. He remembered Pairo, the only friend he had back when the Kurta clan was still alive; but he was no more. Gon, Himeko, Killua, he didn't want the same thing to happen to them, he didn't want another one of his friends to die.

He then set a second condition stating that Chrollo were not to contact any of the members before piercing him with the judgement chain. Kurapika then moved on to Pakunoda and set her conditions. He wanted her to release the hostages before midnight, unharmed. The second condition was that she were not to speak of him or his abilities. After she agreed, he pierced her too with a judgement chain.

She then left without a word, agreeing to bring back Gon, Himeko and Killua unharmed in exchange for their leader wish made Kurapika wonder. Why was she being like this? The Phantom Troupe, are they truly as heartless as they first seemed to be?

...

"I'm taking the kids along, don't stop me." Pakunoda was back at the hideout, ready to take the hostages back to the airport but not everyone was satisfied with the deal.

"Tell us where the meet up place is, we are going to kill the kids and the chain user," Phinks demanded.

"Paku, I'll deal with things here. You take the kids and go!" Machi stepped in, blocking his path.

"You want to take us on?" Feitan questioned. The atmosphere was becoming foul again, and the members were about to break out into a fight.

"Don't you guys understand why Pakunoda wants to go alone or why Machi is stopping you?" Gon interrupted, "You think she is being controlled? She just wants to save your boss, don't you want to rescue him?"

"Shut up, kid!" Phinks turned to him, "Can't you see what position you are in? Are you that desperate to get out of here?"

"I'm not desperate at all," Gon growled, before breaking out of the chains that were used to tie him down, "Take that back!"

Killua watched his friend's angry outburst before bursting out of the chains too, "Good grief!" He sighed. Himeko sighed and broke free too after both of her friends stood up.

"Kurapika isn't like any of you, he doesn't kill just for the sake of it. He will keep a promise, no matter what!" Gon yelled at them, "Pakunoda knows that after meeting him in person. If you let us go and agree with the conditions, he will let your boss go!"

"Put some faith in your comrade just like we are putting faith into our friend!" Himeko added, "You probably worked together for a long time now, so you should be able to understand each other. You should be able to see that she is not just doing it for her own sake but for the sake of your boss and you all."

"Don't test your luck, you two…" Phinks warned.

"Just let them go!" Franklin interrupted, "Shal, what would your worst case scenario be?"

"Let me think. The boss is already dead, Paku and the others are being controlled and the three kids escaping."

"Wrong, the worst case scenario is all of us ending up dead, so your scenario doesn't sound that bad at all. Cool off, let her take the kids and if she doesn't return with the boss, then she is being controlled. We will kill her and anyone who is being controlled and rebuild the Troupe."

"I don't mind," Machi agreed, "But let me tell you right now. I'm not being controlled, so it's not going to be easy to kill me off."

Phinks went to the back and sat down, and with that Pakunoda was free to go with the hostages.

...

"She is here." Leorio informed Kurapika while keeping an eye out of the window, "She brought them with her."

"Is anyone behind them?"

"No, just them!" Leorio turned his head to the right and his eyes widened when he spotted another figure, "Wait, there is someone else."

Kurapika's phone rang. He looked at the caller ID.

"It's Hisoka," Leorio informed him.

After threatening Kurapika on the phone, Hisoka managed to get permission to board the airship along with Pakunoda, Gon, Killua and Himeko. He obviously lied, he wouldn't be able to kill Gon and the others yet even if he was given a choice. It was an empty threat, and it worked.

They landed and were starting the hostage exchange.

"Killua, place the phone next to your heart," Kurapika instructed, and Killua did as he said. He passed the phone to Melody to check whether he wasn't being controlled or anything, and he wasn't. "Okay, we'll start the exchange."

After Kurapika announced the exchange to happen, Chrollo walked back to Pakunoda and Hisoka from the right while the trio walked to join Kurapika's side from the left side. Kurapika's side immediately got into the airship, ready to leave while Chrollo walked past Pakunoda without a word.

"_Now you'll feel the pain of losing your home…"_ Kurapika thought, watching Chrollo from the window.

Hisoka's fight with Chrollo was cut short too after Chrollo revealed that he couldn't use Nen anymore due to his judgement chain, leaving Hisoka dumbfounded. Chrollo stayed behind with no home to return to, while Pakunoda and Hisoka returned to Yorkshin city.

It was a hard choice for her to make, but she decided that her comrades' safety was worth much more than her own life. Pakunoda walked back to the hideout, with no leader. She knew that Phinks was going to question her again and worse case scenario, they would kill her thinking she was being controlled by Kurapika.

She found herself back at the hideout, and pulled her pistol out. She had six bullets she could fire, and looked around the room at the six members that were in the group since the beginning with her.

"Feitan, Phinks, Machi, Nobunaga, Shalnark, Franklin. Do you trust me?" She smiled at them gently.

"Hey, are you being controlled by-"

"Phinks, stop." Nobunaga interrupted him, "It's our Paku, have some faith!"

She pointed her gun at them and fired all six Nen bullets at once, before she felt the judgement chain pierce her heart the moment after. She entrusted her comrades with all her memories to look after, hoping that she'd be the last one to fall.

In a flash, all six members were hit by a wave of memories and when they came to it, their comrade was lying there lifelessly. She was dead.

* * *

**A/n -** One more chapter left in the Yorkshin city arc and I'm nearly done with it. This chapter probably wasn't all that interesting, but the next chapter has a lot more extra stuff I added which wasn't in the anime. I'm probably going to be done with the next chapter tomorrow, so I might release it tomorrow too :) With that, the Yorkshin chapter will be concluded.

Replies to Reviews (and dayum, I've never had so many reviews for one chapter before lol. I guess you all liked the KilluaxKou chapter lol.)

_To Arcana the wolf -_ Glad you liked the chapter :) Next chapter won't have much fluff but it does has Killua and Kou arguing (as usual) if that counts. That's how I usually ship them xD

_To the first Guest -_ Abi... *sigh* you don't say 'guess who this is' and call me an hour later telling me that you've reviewed, you idiot! xD Well, anyways at least you got something you didn't expect and thank you for taking your time to summarise the relationship between Kou and Killua!

_To lolipop-sama -_ Yep, Killua does have a heart so I made him pay the full price in the end! Her crush on Kurapika will continue for some time, or maybe for more until I decide whether I crush it or not.

_To Queechi_ \- Maybe he does, or maybe he just got caught up in the moment. I don't know, up to you to find out *shrugs*

_To Ilovekitty's_ \- She will be crushing more on him in the next chapter, but anyhow thanks for the review :D I can't wait to write the two arcs after the Chimera ant arc either, it's going to be a lot of fun ^^

_To the second Guest -_ I'm glad you LOVE and enjoy this fanfic. You posted that review quite a few days ago so if you've caught up, then hi :D

_To Olivia -_ I just added another chapter for you to read, and might add another tomorrow xD Take your time, we all know life can be busy (unfortunately)

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Also, I haven't said this in a while, but thank you to all the new followers and favouriters and of course the reviewers and the silent readers :D


	31. Goodbye Yorkshin

"Morning," Himeko yawned, as she walked into the room with Gon and Killua talking.

"You woke up quite late," Killua pointed out. She was usually the type to wake up around 5am, due to her training at the dojo and ended up waking up everyone around her, just because she couldn't sleep.

"Yeah, we got back really late so I was really tired. I would have fallen asleep inside the airship if I had to endure it for longer."

"Did you check up on Kurapika?" Gon asked her.

"Yes, I did check up on him on the way here," she answered, "Leorio said his fever hasn't gone down. He was overworking himself for the past few days and probably didn't even get enough rest."

"He should stay down for a few more days." Gon said. "I hope he doesn't recover."

"Gon? Is that really you talking?" Killua asked, surprised to hear him hoping that Kurapika shouldn't recover. Himeko decided to walk in and sit next to Gon, grabbing a few snacks from the table in front of them.

"He has a point. If Kurapika were to recover now, he'll probably go after them again. He is already at his limit, he shouldn't be messing with them anymore, at least not for now," she added to what Gon said just a moment ago, "Let's hope that he isn't going to wake up for a few days, until we can assume that the spiders left Yorkshin."

That's when they heard a knock on the door. They turned to the door and saw Zepile enter the room, "The auction will be starting soon, we should get ready and leave in a while."

Gon, Killua and Himeko looked at each other, before Himeko stood up, "I'm going to go and change. See you in half an hour, or so."

With her gone, Gon and Killua decided to change into their tuxedos too along with Zepile. Half an hour later, Gon, Killua and Zepile were waiting outside of the building for the last person to join.

"Sorry I'm late," Himeko walked out of the building, apologising. "Long hair takes long to dry."

"No problem, we aren't late or anything," Zepile smiled at her.

"Those tuxedos actually suit you two!" She complimented Gon and Killua, "Never thought I'd actually see you two wearing something so formal. Oh, of course the tux looks good on you too, Zepile-san."

"Thank you, your dress suits you too, Kou!" Gon smiled back. The top part of her dress was black coloured and full sleeved while the skirt was grey with a grey ribbon tied around her waist. She tied her hair up in a bun and wore a matching, grey head band. For shoes she just wore plain, black flats.

"Yes, you look like a fine young lady," Zepile added. Himeko turned to Killua to hear his opinion since he hasn't contributed yet.

"Not bad, but the dress isn't doing your chest any justice."

Her eyes twitched as she was looking at him who didn't find it much of a deal.

"Kou? Are you okay?" No she was not okay, and although Gon knew that she was going to blow up any second now, he still asked. He watched her gritting her teeth and clenching her hands before pushing Killua down and beating him up.

"I knew I had to kill you some day!" She screamed as she kept kicking the shit out of him.

"Gon!" Killua reached his hand out to Gon, hoping he would help but he just helplessly watched Himeko beat him up.

She pushed his face into the ground, "There is no escape for you today, Gon go and arrange a funeral. I'll bring his corpse in five minutes."

"Go-fsgbunvouitbiytrbi," Killua started off by saying Gon's name, but no one could understand the muffling that came afterwards, "Hel- rgfjvsnsbturivvayn."

"Rest in peace, Killua. It was nice having you as a friend," Gon lowered his head, watching his friend slowly getting beaten up.

Killua finally snapped and pushed her out of his way, "What the hell Gon?! You were meant to help me!"

"That's enough, you are getting your clothes dirty," Zepile interrupted, before Killua could start another arguments with Gon.

"Ahem," Himeko stood up and cleaned her clothes, "Let's all act mature and sophisticated today and head to the auction."

"Mature my ass!" Killua hit her head, "You started it!"

"Well, you called me flat first!"

"That's because you are flat!"

"Well, in that case you deserved it!"

"How many times am I supposed to say it, I probably have more curves than you and I'm a dude!"

"I don't care if you have more curves than me, as a woman, I felt violated!"

"Woman my ass, there is nothing feminine about you."

While they were still arguing, Zepile looked at Gon clearly worried. "Are they going to be okay?"

"Yeah, just give them a minute. They'll be fine." Gon declared confidently.

"Hmph, I'm going ahead then. I am the mature one after all!" She turned away and started walking towards the buildings in the distance.

"Look, didn't I tell you?" Gon whispered over to Zepile.

"You are going the wrong way, dumbass!" Killua stopped her.

She turned around immediately, "Of course I did, I was just testing you."

"Yeah right, dumbass!"

"Stop calling me a dumbass, asshole!"

"You stop calling me an asshole, dumbass."

Watching them walk towards the auction hall, Gon chuckled nervously, "You know Zepile-san, maybe we should stick close to them. They might end up killing each other if we don't keep an eye on them."

Killua and Himeko eventually stopped arguing and the trio reached the auction hall with Zepile. Zepile said that he'll check them in and told them to go and wait in the hall in their seats. Himeko walked ahead, refusing to talk to Killua and Gon was calming Killua down who couldn't stop complaining about her.

She walked down the stairs, wanting to find four seats for them but she didn't expect to come across two familiar faces. She stopped walking and stared at them in surprise, and they stared at her when they recognised her.

"- and that's why I think she is a selfish brat. You understand me, right G-"

Killua who was still caught up in complaining about Himeko, crashed into her who was standing in the way, and Gon who was caught up in calming Killua down, ended up crashing into Killua.

"Why are you standing in the way?!" Killua snapped at her, but he didn't notice Phinks and Feitan sitting right there. Hearing his voice, they looked over at him and Gon.

"Hi… please excuse us, we need to powder our noses, in the girl's toilet. Don't follow!" Himeko let out a nervous chuckle, before she turned around and ran out of the auction hall with Gon and Killua.

"We are not girls, Kou. Don't take us to the girl's bathroom!" Gon pointed out.

"I don't mind, I actually always wondered what it looked like." Killua said. "Besides, who are we running away from?"

"Less talking, more running!"

When they reached the hallway, Phinks blocked them from the front while Feitan blocked they way back.

"We are screwed!" Himeko muttered.

"_Shit!" _Killua thought.

"Haaw!" Gon finally saw the two Troupe members, "What are you doing here?"

"We aren't here to kill you," Phinks informed them, but that wasn't enough to bring their guard down. They were still being very cautious, "The other members have left, and us two stayed behind to enjoy the auction."

"Did you want to tell us something?" Killua asked.

"Yes, we won't kill the chain user."

His answer surprised them.

"Why?" Himeko asked, "Wouldn't that be the only way to help you boss?"

"The chain users powers rely greatly on hatred and vengeance, there are some cases where a Nen ability remains even if the user dies. It can become troublesome to release the power after the user dies." Phinks stopped talking when he noticed that Feitan was wanting him to stop talking. He had clearly said enough and he had to be reminded that he was talking to his enemies. "That's all."

"So our friend is safe for now?" Himeko asked.

"For now, but I won't promise that our conflict with him will end here. We will cross paths in the future, he still wants to get rid of us doesn't he?" He asked. Phinks was partially right, Kurapika still bared hatred towards them but after the battle in Yorkshin and the events that occurred over the past few days, he decided that his priority was to collect his clan's eyes and let them finally rest in peace like they truly deserved. "Well, that's all. We'll be going."

"Wait!" Gon stopped him, "What happened to Pakunoda?"

"She died."

"We are sorry," Gon, Himeko and Killua couldn't help but feel saddened by the news. No matter how many lives they took, they saw how much Pakunoda struggled to get their own boss back which made them realise that the spiders shared a bond too.

"She wanted to thank you." Phinks remembered one specific part of Pakunoda's memories. When walking to the airport, she was surprised that none of the hostages were trying to escape from her. She was injured, and she was alone so at least one person could have gotten away from her, but they didn't. She asked them, and they told her that they trust Kurapika and that they will go with the conditions he set. They wouldn't cheat out of the situation, they wanted to go along and play fair. It made Pakunoda realise that the Troupe isn't just her occupation, it's become a sort of family to her by now. She should trust her comrades and they should trust her, and after that she decided that she would break Kurapika's second condition and sacrifice her life to pass on her memories on to her comrades.

Phinks and Feitan quietly left for the auction hall once again without causing any more commotion.

"Doesn't he look a bit upset although he was the one with all that big talk?" Himeko asked, watching them walk away.

"It was the same with Nobunaga when his partner was killed," Gon added.

"Assassins, thieves, serial killers are all the same. They live their lives not knowing when it will come to an end, and that's the first condition they have to accept when it comes to this. No matter how crazy their stunts were, they were aware that one day they will meet their match and if that were to happen, they would have to give up their life. They probably never expected it to happen so suddenly," Killua said. He looked at Gon and Himeko who still felt a little bad for them and pushed them back inside the auction hall, "Come on, we have to find the seats before Zepile-san comes back!"

...

"Our next item for the auction is the rare video games, Greed island. Let's start bidding at 900 million jenny!"

In an instant, one, two, three no four auctioneers bidded bringing the price of the game to six billion. Killua scanned the crowd to see who bidded and was surprised to see his brother Milluki in the crowd.

Zepile explained what all the different hand gestures meant to Gon and Himeko who were listening as they watched the price increase.

"So if I hold my thumb up like this -" Gon started off.

"#201 doubles the price again, making it 24 billion!"

"Wait," Himeko started to panic, "We are #201!"

"Gon, put your hand down!" Zepile started shouting. "If we bid and can't pay for it, we'll get into big trouble!"

Luckily, someone else increased the bid once again, making Gon, Himeko and Zepile sigh in relief. However, Killua wasn't aware of what was going on around his area, his eyes were fixed on his brother who raised his hand once again.

"25.6 billion!"

"_Damn it, how much money does he even have?!"_

"30.5 billion." Someone topped Milluki's bid, making him groan in frustration.

30.5 billion was the final bid and no one was willing to pay another jenny for the game. The bid for Greed island ended and the hostess presented the next item.

"What do we do now?" Killua asked.

"That man who won the bid, I overheard him talking about hiring people to clear the game," Gon said, "We can ask him."

"I guess it's worth a shot!" Himeko shrugged.

They exited the hall and searched the building for the man who won the game. They eventually found him sitting on a chair with half a dozen bodyguards around him.

"Is he some kind of big shot?" Himeko asked.

"Well, he bid 30.5 billion on a game and is paying people to clear the game. I think that should answer your question." Killua said.

"Shall we go and ask?" Gon whispered over.

"Well, that's all we can do right now."

"Okay, Kou please talk to him."

"Huh, why me?"

"Because Killua and I might say something unnecessary."

"You were the one who said Killua needed to keep us two under control a couple days ago!"

"Sorry, I changed my mind."

"Gon, I'm still here too." Killua reminded.

"Come on you two, he's going to leave!" Gon dragged them along in front of the man.

"_Why me, they are perfectly capable of talking for themselves,"_ Himeko thought, "Excuse me?"

The man looked up at them, "Yes, can I help you?"

"Yes, we are Hunters. We'd like to help clear Greed Island."

The bodyguards stepped up and surrounded the trio. "Stop joking around with us."

"But we aren't joking around, we _are_ all pro hunters."

The man stood up from his chair and made his way through his bodyguards, "If you are Hunters, do you have a Hunter's license?"

"Of course we do!" Gon blurted out.

Killua sighed before he reminded Gon, "Your license is at the pawn shop, remember?"

"Oh, yeah!"

"Well, I have my license with me," Himeko reached out and took out her Hunter's license and show it to them.

"I'm sorry, but the license only says that you are a Hunter. It doesn't tell us that your two friends are Hunters too."

"But we all took the Hunter exam together!" Himeko protested, "Please, give us a chance to prove ourselves."

The man looked at the trio in front of them and thought for a while, "Fine. The fact that you are in here means that you aren't ordinary children. But tell me this, why do you want to play the game so badly? It's no ordinary video game, I hope you are aware of that."

Himeko and Killua looked at Gon and waited for him to tell them the reason, "My old man was one of the people who created the game, and I'm trying to find him. He left me a memory card and a ring, so I think the game might have information about his whereabouts."

When Gon mentioned the memory card and the ring, he caught the man's attention. He turned around and seemed to have called someone from the back. A tall, tan man stepped forth and carefully analysed the trio standing in front of him.

"This is Tsezsuerra, he is one of the people I've hired to complete the game for me. I've also hired him to judge the ability of volunteers and see if they are fit for the game. If he says you could survive the game, then I will let you three join."

Gon, Himeko and Killua look at Tsuzsuerra who looked as if he was doubting their abilities. He crossed his arms and sighed before he gave in, "Okay, if you three are pro Hunters, you must be aware of Nen. I want you three to show me your Ren."

"Is that all we have to do?" Killua asked.

"Yes."

The trio output a high amount of aura, trying to keep it on the body and expanding the size and intensity of it gradually. The three were surrounded by a large area of white aura, but Tsuzsuerra didn't seem very impressed by it. He told them to stop.

"That's enough," he stopped them. "You are not strong enough to play the game."

"Why not?" Himeko questioned.

"I've had a lot of experience playing the game, and I know the dangers of it very well. If you three go in like this, you will die." His tone was serious, he wasn't joking. Hearing of the dangers of the game, the three gulped.

"Then please give us another chance!" Gon requested.

"You will produce the same results, you are not strong enough at your stage!"

Before the trio could protest again, Battera stepped forward. He explained that he will have a deadline for the screening, so if they are interested, they should attend the screening once they are strong enough. With that, he excused himself and left with his bodyguards and Tsuzsuerra, leaving the trio with hardly any hope. They watched him leave through the front entrance and stood there thinking what to do next.

"We have to pass that screening!" Gon declared, "We have to get stronger."

"Maybe we could pass if we start creating a Hatsu," Himeko suggested, after taking a moment to think about it.

"Let's just head back home for now, we don't have anything else to do here," Killua said.

After bidding Zepile their goodbyes, the trio left back to the abandoned building where they were staying at. They changed back into their casual clothes and gathered together inside the room they were talking in the morning. All three of them sat in each corner, trying to get an idea on how to create a Hatsu.

"This is harder than I thought," Himeko thought out loud, to which Gon and Killua couldn't help but agree. There was another round of silence in the room as everyone was trying to think of ideas. While Gon and Himeko were drawing blanks, Killua was actually thinking of something useful.

"_Wing-san said that a good Hatsu should reflect someone's personality and personal experience,"_ he thought, "I've got an idea!"

"Really?" Gon asked, turning to Killua, "What is it?"

"It's a secret!" Killua smiled before he got up and walked out of the room. Gon and Himeko watched him in confusion, and as he walked out, they looked at each other before following him out. He entered another one of the rooms and turned around. "Why are you two following me? I said it's a secret until I can show it to you all!" He then closed the door.

"I thought us transmuters could help each other out, but I guess not," Himeko pouted, and slowly walked back into the previous room and sat in her original seat before she started thinking. Gon also joined her eventually.

They were both stuck inside the box, and couldn't think outside of it. Thinking about it, they understood why Killua didn't want them to see him train. His training could influence their thoughts, and they could end up doing something very similar which wouldn't be good. While they were thinking, they heard the door open.

"Are you two okay?" Kurapika was finally awake, and he made his way inside the room and sat on the sofa. "You were all quiet, I was surprised not to have you three running around the building."

"That's because we are thinking," Gon explained.

"Thinking? About what?"

"We are thinking of creating a Hatsu. The auction didn't go well, and there was a man who outbid us. He is planning to buy all seven copies of the game and hiring people to play the game for us, but when we asked him he told us that we aren't strong enough."

"Killua has already started training in the other room, but Gon and I are still drawing blanks," Himeko added, "That reminds me, how did you complete your training? I mean, you managed to create such a good Hatsu in such a short time span."

Kurapika thought back to his training period and sighed. He began to tell them how he trained in the woods, and how all his powers were created through hatred for the Phantom Troupe. He didn't want to waste too much time training, so he used Vows and Limitations to create his Hatsu in a short amount of time, but he recommended not to use the same method as him. Although he explained how he created his own Hatsu, he clearly told them that they shouldn't follow his method at all costs.

"You two are better off asking your mentors for help," he advised them. "Just don't use the same method as me."

When Kurapika finished talking, Gon and Himeko looked at each other before Gon took out his phone and called Wing. He stood up and walked to the window to continue the conversation as Himeko and Kurapika stayed back and watched him. After a ten minute conversation with his master, Gon cut the call and returned to his seat next to Himeko. He told them that as an Enhancer, he is the most balanced in both offence and defence compared to the other Nen types. Enhancers didn't need a special ability, mastering Ten and Ren was good enough for them. When Gon told Wing Kurapika's training method, he clearly advised him not to follow his path as he will end up disappointed. Wing did give him one hint though after Gon begged him.

"Well, that's great but did you actually understand all that?" Himeko asked.

"A bit. I guess he wants me to figure it out myself. What about you, aren't you going to ask your master?" Gon asked.

Himeko sighed out of frustration that it had to come to this. She got out her phone and walked up to the window and looked through her contacts. "_Sensei doesn't have a phone, so I can't phone him. Natsu probably misplaced his phone somewhere, so he won't pick up. If I call Haru, he is going to dilly dally, so that's no use, so I guess Toshi is the only choice I've got."_

She phoned his number and waited for him to pick up.

_"Hello?"_

"It's Kou, how are you?"

_"Kou? So you are still alive. What's up, what do you want?"_

"I need help on something."

_"No wonder you called!"_

"Will you help me?"

_"I have no choice, what do you need help with?"_

Himeko explained her situation and her need to become stronger in order to pass the screening for the game. She had no clue on how to create a good Hatsu, and Toshiro only explained each and every thing briefly during their lessons. She wasn't ready to create a Hatsu while she was at the dojo, so in order for her not to rush into creating one on her own, they kept information on Hatsu very limited.

"So, can you help me with that?"

_"Hm… you can try and meditate, that always works. Besides, I hope you are still doing that daily meditation."_

When Toshiro started to talk about meditating and was lecturing her about not meditating every day in the morning, she started to get very impatient. She turned around and forced a smile out at Gon and Kurapika.

"Please excuse my language for the next couple of minutes." When they nodded, she turned back around and started yelling into the phone. "You asshole, of course I know how to fucking meditate, why the fuck do you think I called?"

_"What the hell, you were the one to ask for help, you moron!"_

"Yes I did, but I didn't want you to tell me to bloody meditate!"

_"Have you been meditating then?"_

"I've been going after a group of infamous thieves, of course I didn't have the fucking time to!"

_"You don't meditate and train your Ten, of course you'll be weak, idiot!"_

"How am I supposed to get stronger by sitting on the stupid floor for hours?!"

_"Well, you've been doing that every day for the past months and look how strong you've gotten!"_

"Well, I obviously didn't get strong enough since I was rejected by some rich, old guy who can't do things by himself and some stuck up baldie who thinks he's some kind of big shot!"

_"Fine, don't you remember what I taught you about Hatsu?"_

"A good Hatsu is meant to reflect one's personality, making it unique."

_"Good, so you do remember. I can't help you much, so you have to think of it yourself. The only person who knows enough about you in order to create a Hatsu is you. A good Hatsu reflects one's personality as you said, so that's all you have to take away and think about."_

"That doesn't exactly help much though…"

_"Oh, Sensei wants to talk to you apparently."_

She could hear Toshiro explaining the situation over to Sensei in the background and warning him not to break his phone before handing it over to him. After a long round of silence, Himeko decided to speak.

"Sensei?"

_"So now you finally remembered us."_

"Please don't start, Sensei!"

_"I do have some advice."_

"Really?! What is it?"

_"Go and take a walk outside. Get some fresh air!"_

"..."

_"Hello? Toshi, your communication device isn't working. I can't hear her!"_

"I'm still here, but take a walk? Really? That's the best advice you can give?"

_"Nature inspires artists, why can't you get some inspiration from it?"_

"I guess you have a point."

_"You are a transmuter, so you have endless amount of possibilities, use them."_

"Okay, I'll give you a call when I'm stuck again."

With that, she cut the call and returned to her seat. Gon and Kurapika were still taken back by the fact that she raised her voice a few times over the phone, "I was told to go and take a walk outside to get some ideas…" she informed them.

"So, are you going to take a walk outside?" Gon asked.

"Sensei did train those three idiots, and they did turn out really strong, so trusting his advice might not be a bad idea," she explained, "But seriously? Taking a walk?"

Gon and Himeko sighed once again, remembering how vague their masters' advice was. Gon got up and made his way out into another one of the empty room, taking a glance at Killua's room door on the way. It left Himeko and Kurapika alone in the room, wondering what to do next.

"_Maybe I should just go and listen to the old man for once,"_ she thought before she stood up and smiled at Kurapika. "I'm going to go and get some fresh air."

"Oh," he stood up as well, "Do you want me to accompany you? I won't be of much use, but I can keep you company."

Himeko walked up to Kurapika, and pushed him back down by his shoulders, onto the sofa he was sitting on. "You should rest, Kurapika! Besides, I don't think I'll be able to concentrate if you came with me."

"Yes, I would have guessed. I would only slow you down."

"_Nope, not at all. My imaginations will run very wild if you came along!"_ She thought, staring at his face.

"Is anything wrong, Kou?"

"No, not at all. I'll be going now!" She said as she ran out of the room, leaving Kurapika confused. She ran down the hallway, taking a glance at both Killua's room door and Gon's room door on the way and ran down the set of stairs.

"_Take a walk he says, it won't be that hard, will it now?"_ She thought, looking at the forest in front of her. She took a deep breath and walked down the path in front of her into the deep woods. She remembered to stay on the path, in case she got lost which if she did, she wouldn't be surprised.

Eventually, she reached a middle of the forest and lied down on the slightly damp grass. She looked up at the cloudy sky, and watched the clouds pass revealing the sun once in a while. She enjoyed the cool breeze that occasionally passed by, and made sure to relax taking deep breaths.

She thought back over the past couple of days, remembering the drama that happened. Although she didn't witness all of the Troupe's abilities, she did get to take a note of few. They were all unique and different from each other. Not just that, Kurapika's Hatsu was a reflection of his personality too and so was Melody, who enjoyed music.

That's when it hit her, she had to think about her own qualities. Right now, she was a free bird, going wherever she wants without anyone bossing her around like they did in the past. She wasn't in a cage anymore, she was free to do whatever she liked (as long as she didn't break the law of course).

"_Taking in some fresh air might not be such a bad idea!"_

…

During the next few hours, Himeko tried her hardest to mimic the properties of the wind that was blowing through the forest. Of course, she couldn't see the wind which made things a lot harder for her. She only knew how the wind felt, but at least that was better than nothing. The fact that their aura was invisible to the naked eye was a good way to compare it to. It was there, but you can't see it just like the air around her. She was able to produce a small gust of air from her hands, which was a good start in her opinion. She kept going, trying to increase the intensity of the wind each time.

"Kou, it's getting late. Come back inside, Leorio brought food," Gon and Killua who were done with training for the day came from behind and joined her. Gon at this point had an excited smile on his face, meaning he has discovered something and couldn't wait to train more. Looking over at Killua, he also had a satisfied smirk on his face, clearly telling everyone that he knew what he was doing and he was doing it right.

"Right, let's go!" She stood back up and followed them out of the forest, into the building where they met up with Leorio and Kurapika to have dinner.

"Did you two get an idea?" Kurapika asked them, and Gon and Himeko replied by giving him a satisfied nod.

"I can't show you all what I came up with because I don't want to break the room," Gon smiled, "But then again, I'm not exactly done with it either."

Kurapika turned over to Killua, but he just shook his head wanting to keep his powers a secret for now, which made them turn to Himeko who had a satisfied grin on her face. She was obviously very proud at the little progress she's got over the past couple of hours.

"Okay, if you want to see my abilities that badly, I guess I can't help but show you what I've got so far," she grinned, before holding out her left hand. Everyone focused on the hand, waiting for something big to happen but instead, a small gust of air blew into their faces. "Isn't it cool?"

"You don't need an A/C for the summer, that's for sure," Leorio commented, biting into his sandwich.

Himeko noticed Killua snickering in his little corner.

"What do you think you are laughing at?"

"It's like your hand farted. A hand fart," he then continued to laugh out loud, like a six year old.

"Well, it's all I got after day one. We have four days, I will improve and blow you off your chair, literally!"

"Let's see about that."

"Oh, really?" She asked, "What about you then? Is your power cooler than mine?"

"Duh, way cooler!"

"Really? What is it?"

"It's a secret. Wait for four more days, you'll see."

"It's probably no where as cool as a Kamehameha wave, or a Rasengan."

"Your food is getting cold," Kurapika pointed out, which made them turn their attention back on their food.

For the next three days, Gon, Killua and Himeko trained individually while Kurapika decided to rest a little more before departing the next day. Leorio spent his days looking after Kurapika and practicing his Ten. Himeko was still in the forest, in the same spot and she improved a lot compared to day one. It wasn't just her, Killua and Gon were able to improve too and were a lot more confident about the screening. To take a break from training, she collapsed back down onto the grass and looked up at the sky. The sun was now setting, and the sky showed a gradient of different shades of orange and reds.

"_If I'm able to shoot wind out of my hands, I might be able to float or fly if I try and shoot it out of my feet,"_ she thought. Although she was fantasising about something silly like being able to fly through the orange sky above her, her face was pretty serious, as if she was calculating an impossible to solve maths question. She then got back up and looked around, making sure no one was going to see her fail before a mischievous smile crept up on her face. "_Might as well just try when no one is watching!"_

Instead of focusing her aura in her hands, she tried to do the same thing but focus it in her feet. She ended up getting shot up in the air, which she didn't process in her head.

"Oi, Leorio wants to go Karaoke. It's time to stop..." Killua came to get her this time, but he looked on the spot where she always practiced but she was not there. He looked up as soon as he heard a scream coming down towards him, and saw a figure falling down before he stepped away, causing the Himeko to fall flat on her face.

"...training." Killua was able to complete his sentence, now that he found her.

"Thanks for catching me, it really helped me not to get my face nearly broken!" Himeko thanked him sarcastically, still lying on the ground with her face in the ground.

"Anytime!" Killua answered, "Want me to call an ambulance."

She got off the ground slowly, "No, I think I'll live."

"It's time to stop training, Leorio wants us all to go out and have fun before Kurapika leaves tomorrow morning."

"It's time to stopped training already?" she asked, "_Man, I've trained for a whole day and all I did was improve the Wind blast and fool around with it…"_

"You've been sitting there all day, of course it's time to get up and get moving!"

"Where is Gon?"

"He told me to give him another ten minutes."

"How is your training coming along?"

Killua simply answered her question by showing off his new ability which started as a small spark and developing into larger sparks of electricity.

"Woah, that is cool!" She awed.

"What about your hand fart?"

"It became even stronger," she grinned, proudly, "But I can do something else. Watch!" She put her hands together, with a small gap between them and concentrated on that space. A moment later, a small tornado appeared between her hands. "Look! Cool, right?"

"I guess it's cooler than the hand fart."

The small tornado disappeared when she put her hands together. "I won't show off my Wind blast today, that will be revealed tomorrow!"

"Wind blast?"

"The hand fart."

"Just stick to calling it the hand fart," he advised her.

"Stop making up weird nicknames for my attacks!"

"Let's go back, everyone is probably waiting."

"Where are we going?"

"Leorio booked a place at a Karaoke bar since Kurapika will be leaving tomorrow morning."

"Karaoke bar? What's that?"

"You'll see."

...

"Wow, this place is awesome!" Himeko and Gon awed as they entered the room Leorio booked. Killua and Leorio had been to these before, so they weren't as excited as them while Kurapika just didn't care about singing.

"We are going to be in here for two hours, so just sit back and have fun," Leorio smiled, before looking through the menu card.

"Leorio, you are underaged and there are other minors in the room," Kurapika reminded him, which made him turn to the non alcoholic section of the menu card. He then picked up the phone and ordered five glasses of soda and some snacks while the kids looked through the list of songs to sing.

"How does this work?" Himeko asked.

"You pick one of the songs, and the lyrics appear on the screen and you just sing it," Killua explained. He decided to demonstrate by selecting a random song and turned to the TV. He started singing when the music started and the lyrics appeared on the screen, while Gon and Himeko still seemed fascinated by it.

Killua ended his performance with a victorious pose, and proudly walked back to his seat where he received a round of applause from the audience.

"Wow, Killua. You are a good singer!" Gon complimented him, which made Killua raise his head in satisfaction.

"Yeah, I was surprised. You don't even look like a good singer!" Himeko added, which only made him get crushed down again.

Leorio was looking through the list of songs as well, wanting to be up next. A song caught his eye and he immediately looked over at Kurapika who was sipping his drink next to him, clearly uninterested of what was about to happen.

"Kurapika, want to sing a duet with me?" Leorio asked.

"I'll pass!" Kurapika shot him down.

Although he was slightly disappointed, he still stood up and walked up to the front of the room confidently.

"Kou, hit the tambourine!" Leorio shouted into the mic.

"This?" Himeko asked, as she picked up the tambourine on the table, "_By hit it, he does mean play it, right?"_

"Yeah, that one right there!"

"I've never played a tambourine before, I don't know how to play it."

"You don't need to know how to play it," Killua pointed out. "Just play along to the beat of the song as if you are clapping along."

The song started and although she was startled by the music playing out so suddenly, she managed to keep up with the beat. Leorio then joined in and started singing with full confidence. As expected, his singing wasn't as great as he claimed it was but it was decent. At least he had a lot of fun singing the song for sure.

Kurapika passed the list of songs to Himeko, and she handed the tambourine over to Gon who wanted to have a go with it before looking through the list. She didn't know many songs in the list, but she could always improvise by making up random lyrics.

She then got an idea and reluctantly looked at Kurapika. "_He doesn't seem like he is interested in singing, but I can always ask him." _She thought before bringing her confidence up to ask him. "Kurapika, will you please sing a duet with me?"

Kurapika was slightly taken back by her request, as he never exactly expected anyone apart from Gon to ask him to sing, but he smiled and put his glass of soda back on the table. "Sure, what song do you want to sing!"

A bright smile appeared on her face as she passed the list of songs to him and pointed at the song she wanted to sing, "This one!"

He stood up and picked up his microphone before heading to the front, and Himeko excitedly joined him.

"Wait, that's a foul move!" Leorio interrupted, "Why did you reject me when I asked?"

"I don't know, I think I'm in the mood to sing all of the sudden," Kurapika smiled. Leorio turned over to see Himeko stick her tongue out at him. Their little stare off was interrupted when the song started, and when Gon started playing the tambourine to the beat of the song. When the song started, it was Kurapika's turn and he calmly sung along in a shy voice. Singing was the last thing he expected to do in Yorkshin, after all. Soon, Himeko joined in once it was her turn and she sang in a more excited voice which contrasted greatly with Kurapika's voice; but it somehow went well together and fit the song.

The song ended, and the pair went back to their seats and were greeted with a round of applause.

"You have a really good voice, Kou," Kurapika complimented, much to her liking. She smiled like an idiot in response, slightly flustered by his compliment.

"_I'm glad I was made to take singing lessons!"_ She thought.

Gon on the other hand was deep in thoughts, looking at the big choice of songs he could select from. He didn't really seem to like any of them and looked up, "Can all of us sing a song together? We are doing it for fun, aren't we?"

Killua, Kurapika, Leorio and Himeko looked at each other and smiled in agreement before picking up their microphones. They let Gon pick a song and he showed them his choice before he clicked on it.

'Departure' they all read. That was the name of the song he picked. (Hunter x Hunter 2011 Opening) It wasn't about ability at this point, they were just trying to have fun, occasionally trying to pull the high notes and failing miserably. They wanted to celebrate their reunion at last before they were going to part ways again. After the song was over, they all crashed back on the sofas, giggling in amusement.

"Who wants to go next?" Leorio asked.

Himeko put her hand up, "I want to try and sing a song alone!"

Leorio passed her the song selection device, and she spotted the song she wanted to sing immediately. She selected the song 'Pray' (1999 version, opening 3 I think. Correct me if I'm wrong) , before picking up the microphone and looking at the TV screen to start.

An hour later, the five have gone through quite a selection of songs on the list. Leorio even convinced Kurapika to sing a duet with him. Gon and Killua of course had to sing a song together and picked 'Ohayo' (Opening 1, 1999 version). Leorio screamed his lungs off by singing 'Just awake' (Ending 1, 2011 version), hurting everyone's eardrums while doing so.

"Hey Killua, want to sing a song together?" Himeko asked.

"Sure, why not." He shrugged.

"Okay, you choose then!"

She passed the list to him so he could choose a song. He looked through the list, and one song caught his attention. It was 'Hunting for your dreams' (Ending 2, 2011 version).

"Leorio, hit the tambourine!" Himeko passed the tambourine over to Leorio, and he gladly accepted it. As expected, both Killua and Himeko didn't want to lose to each other and sang to their full potential.

"_I guess Karaoke was a better choice than going to a restaurant!" _Leorio thought, looking at everyone having fun. After they finished singing, Leorio heard a knock on the door and went to open it. It was the food he ordered a few minutes ago before singing. He let the staff in to place the tray of food on the table before leaving. "Okay, who is hungry?"

After setting their microphones aside, it was finally time for dinner. Although most of it was junk food, they didn't care and just continued stuffing themselves. Gon and Killua were being themselves, challenging each other to an eat off and stuffing their faces while Himeko was next to Gon, trying not to get sucked into the competition. To try and distract herself, she listened to Leorio's and Kurapika's conversation; although Leorio was doing most of the talking.

"So…" Leorio tried initiating a conversation with Kurapika, "Were you able to hook up with a girl?"

The question flustered Kurapika and made Himeko choke and spit her soda out on his face. Gon turned over, and patted her back trying to calm her down and stop coughing while Killua, Leorio and Kurapika were trying to process the soda on Kurapika's face.

Once Himeko had finally finished coughing, she apologised. "I'm sorry, Kurapika. I was just taken back by Leorio's question."

Luckily, Kurapika didn't make a big deal out of it and just turned to Leorio to glare, "Don't worry, even I was taken back by the question."

"Are you seriously alright?"

He smiled at her, "Don't worry, I'm fine."

"_What is he, a saint? I just spat soda all over him and he still smiles like it's nothing. At least he doesn't hate me!" _

"I'm going to the toilet to clean myself up, just continue singing. I will join you in a while," Kurapika excused himself.

Seeing him leave, Himeko stood up and excused herself too, "I need to go to the toilet."

While walking to the washrooms together, Himeko couldn't help but feel bad. The soda must feel all sticky. Kurapika looked at her and saw her worried expression, "Don't worry, it's not something a little water can't fix."

"So you're not annoyed at me?"

"No, why would I?" He looked at her who still wasn't convinced. "Don't worry, I'll only take a few minutes to get cleaned up."

She watched him walk into the men's bathroom and entered the women's bathroom after he left. She didn't need to go to the toilet like she said, but she wanted to apologise to him. She wanted to ask someone for help, but there was no one inside. She then remembered Leorio mentioning that the internet is certainly a useful thing and pulled out her phone to browse the web.

"Hmm.. I guess I should type 'relationship advice' in the search box." She sat on the counter with the sinks and started typing into the search box and saw a lot of suggestions come up. "Hm.. which one should I choose."

She scrolled down through the list of suggestions until she found something that sounded somewhat useful to her.

'FREE relationship advice by Loveguru.'

She discovered that the page was a sort of forum, where people would post their dilemmas and this Loveguru person would answer them. After looking at the examples, she started typing.

**Kou:** Hello, my name is Kou, as you could already see by my username… There is this boy I really really really like and we went to karaoke today with a bunch of friends but I accidentally spat soda on his face. I don't know what to do!

"_That should do it!"_ She smiled to herself and was surprised to see an almost instant reply.

**Loveguru:** Hi Kou, I just have a question to ask. Have you offered to lick the soda off his face?

"_What the actual fuck…."_

**Kou:** No, why would I even do that?

**Loveguru:** Well, you either do that or at least offer a handkerchief!

**Kou:** Why would anyone lick soda off someone else's face. Are you really a love guru or some sort of pervert?

**Loveguru:** I am a love guru, but I never claimed not to be a pervert. *smirk*

"_Why is it always me that has to put up with these kinds of people?"_

**Loveguru:** Have you apologised?

**Kou:** Yes, just around one million times.

**Loveguru:** Did he accept the apologies?

**Loveguru:** How did he react?

**Kou:** He was taken back, but he told me to stop apologising and said these kinds of things happen occasionally and that it's something a little water won't be able to fix.

**Loveguru:** Wow, what a saint.

**Loveguru:** Can I have his number?

**Loveguru:** For research purposes of course…

**Kou:** NO!

**Loveguru:** Okay :(

**Loveguru:** I hope things work out between you two, good luck and don't be afraid to come back for relationship advice.

"_I doubt I will use this forum again.."_

**Loveguru:** If he said he is fine, you should trust him. Right now, you think he is lying to you trying to make you feel better when that's not the case.

**Kou:** Your advice is actually pretty good!

**Loveguru:** Thanks, I'm just one with humour that talks a lot.

**Kou:** Thanks for the advice, bye!

She put her phone back, before hopping off the counter and walking out of the women's bathroom.

"_Maybe I was overreacting a little."_

She was surprised to see Kurapika waiting for her outside.

"Oh, you didn't have to wait for me," she said, as she joined him.

"Don't worry, there might still be creepy characters lurking around the city, so I didn't want to take risks."

"Creepy characters?" She asked. "Like Hisoka?"

"Yes," he nodded. "Like Hisoka."

"I'm hearing my name."

The pair turned around and saw a familiar face behind them.

"_Great… not him!"_

"What's with the disappointed faces?" Hisoka asked. "Aren't you happy to see me?"

"Our deal is over Hisoka," Kurapika informed him, sternly.

"My, my, aren't you a little selfish. What made you think that I had things to discuss with you?" Hisoka questioned. He looked over at Himeko, "I'd like to talk with her."

Kurapika stepped forward, "There is nothing for you to discuss with her, go away!"

A smug grin appeared on Hisoka's face as he looked at Himeko, "Oh really, why don't we ask her for her opinion?"

Himeko sighed in defeat after looking at his face. "What do you want from me?"

"You see, her brother and I are close friends," Hisoka explained to Kurapika. "There are some things I want to tell her about her brother."

"You know where he is?" Himeko asked.

"He was heading towards Otaka, so he will be there for a while I guess."

"Otaka?" Kurapika asked.

"It's our birthplace, he is probably heading home." Himeko explained. "I would have never expected our house to still be intact after all these years though."

Hisoka passed a piece of paper over to Himeko. "It's my number, call me if you need more information." Himeko unfolded the piece of paper and looked at the phone number on it. She reluctantly put it back inside her pocket and watched Hisoka walk back.

"One second, Hisoka. Why are you helping me?"

Hisoka stopped walking and turned around smiling. "One of my toys is broken, so I need a new toy. Besides, watching these family quarrels is fun, don't you think?"

"Did you follow us all the way here just so you could tell her that?" Kurapika asked.

"Follow you?" He questioned. "Of course not. I'm here with a friend of mine who has helped me yesterday. I have to pay him back of course. I just happened to run into you by chance."

With that Hisoka left them alone, wondering who his mystery friend could be.

"Kurapika, it couldn't be that person, could it?"

"You mean Killua's brother?"

"Yes, that one."

"Let's just keep this a secret from everyone else and pretend it never happened."

"Good idea."

After agreeing on that, the pair decided to head back to their room. However, a lot of things were crossing Himeko's mind. She asked herself whether she should trust Hisoka first of all, but that wasn't her main concern. The fact that her brother's location could have been pinpointed overwhelmed her. He was just in reach and if she headed to Otaka right now, she might be able to find him at last. Not just that, she could check out the state of their clan mansion on the way. The fact that Hisoka told her that Hakuryuu was heading to Otaka was a good enough reason to trust him in her opinion. She never mentioned being from there to anyone, so him actually knowing means that he did have some kind of link with Hakuryuu, she just didn't know what kind of relationship they had.

"Kou, you are planning to go to your hometown, aren't you?" Kurapika asked.

She nodded, "I guess it's worth a shot."

"Can I ask you something? If you find your brother, what are you going to do next?"

"I do have a plan of what I'm going to do afterwards."

"You aren't going to recklessly find the people who attacked the clan, are you?"

Himeko didn't answer his question, because he had hit the nail on the head. That was exactly what she was going to do after finding her brother.

"You aren't going, I won't let you!" Kurapika declared in a stern tone.

"Why not?"

"Do you want to get yourself killed?" He snapped. "What if someone like the Phantom Troupe killed them, would you be able to face them yourself?"

"I can only find that out after I tried!" She protested.

"Snap out of it, it's too dangerous for you to go!"

"Why?" She asked. "Is it because I'm still a little kid? Will you let me go if I'm the same age as you then?"

Kurapika answered her question with silence. He wasn't going to let her go, no matter how old or strong she was.

"Okay, I get it. You can go and face all the devils on earth, but when it comes to me, I can't, am I right?" She questioned. "I will never be strong enough to face whatever is out there, but you don't need our help and can face everything by yourself, isn't that right?"

"That's not what I meant." Kurapika objected.

"Of course you meant that, stop lying!"

"I'm not lying, just hear me out."

"I'm done listening to you being a hypocrite," she cut in. "I'm going, and I won't let anyone stop me."

Himeko stubbornly stormed off to the karaoke room, while Kurapika remained behind watching her leave.

"She can be a handful," Kurapika heard a voice from behind. Hisoka was still there, and he was listening to the whole conversation.

"Did you lie to her?" Kurapika asked.

"Why would I?" Hisoka asked. "I told her the truth, Hak is still alive and he is heading to Otaka with his partner. I'm just trying to get those two siblings back together."

"What is your ulterior motive?" Kurapika questioned. "Unless something is in it for you, you won't agree to help."

"It's going to be entertaining to see the siblings reunite," he smirked. "It's something she won't be expecting."

"What do you mean?"

"That's for me to know, and for you to find out." This time, Hisoka started walking back to his karaoke room for real. "See ya~"

...

"Kou, want to sing a song with Killua and I?" Gon asked as soon as Himeko walked back inside.

"Where is Kurapika?" Leorio asked.

"I kinda ditched him…" she admitted. "I'm going ahead, I'm tired." Gon, Killua and Leorio watched her pack up all her things and walk towards the door. "Also Gon, Killua. I won't join you two for Greed Island, I'm going away to visit my home town."

With that, she walked out of the room and to the building they were staying at, to start preparing for her journey home. She had to pack, and book the tickets too. Five minutes later, Kurapika entered the karaoke room and was surprised to see that Himeko was gone.

"She went ahead and told us to stay," Leorio explained. "Did something happen? She seemed a bit upset."

Kurapika sat back down next to Leorio, "No, nothing."

* * *

**A/n -** As promised, here is the last Yorkshin chapter :D I kinda felt sorry about the last chapter not being interesting so I tried to make this interesting and kept going and going and going... I'm sorry if it was too long for you to bear with TT_TT

So, now you know what kind of Hatsu she is going to develop. Hand fart ftw xD

But seriously, imagine Hisoka inviting Illumi to a karaoke bar. What kind of songs would those two even sing...

Well, since there was only one review since I posted the previous chapter yesterday, I'll just reply to that.

_To Arcana the Wolf -_ Yeah, I didn't want her to die either. Especially when she walked back to the hideout in the anime and saw that cat in the rain and meowed back at the cat. I was like NOO! But seriously, although I wanted Kurapika to get his revenge at the start of the series, I've grown attached to the Phantom Troupe...

I hope Killua and Kou argued enough in this chapter, the arguing will continue next chapter xD


	32. Visiting Hometown I

"_Passengers going to Padokea, are ready to board the airship. Please make your way through the checkpoint." _

"That's not my flight either," Himeko sighed, looking at the screen with the flight timings. She booked a ticket to Otaka last night, although Kurapika had told her not to go and do anything reckless. Gon, Killua and Leorio decided to drop them off at the airport, since both Himeko's flight and Kurapika and Melody's flight were around the same time. However, she decided to far sit away from everyone else, alone, waiting for her to be called to board the airship.

She couldn't help but feel bad about calling Kurapika a hypocrite last night, although it was somehow true. It just ended up slipping out of her mouth before she realised what she said. She was too ashamed to go and face him, and was hoping for her to be called as soon as possible before someone comes and drags her there.

"Kou, why are you sitting here alone?"

Speak of the devil. Hearing her name, Himeko looked up where the voice was coming from and saw Leorio coming towards her. She knew that he was somehow going to convince her to come with him, and she just got up and was about to walk away.

"Not so fast," she was grabbed by the collar, "Where do you think you are going without saying goodbye to all of us?"

She stopped walking and didn't fight back, making Leorio let go.

"Come on, let's go and see Kurapika and Melody off. He is going to be upset if you don't see him off."

"I don't wanna!" She declared firmly, not wanting to change her mind.

Leorio crouched down, so he was at the same eye level as her, "What's with the sad face?" He asked, "You usually smile as much as Gon. Here, let me help you with that!" Leorio used both his index fingers to curve her lips upwards and held it like that, forcing her to smile although Himeko was clearly trying to fight it off, but it was no use. "Look, much better!"

Not being able to bear it any longer, she kicked his shin making him fall back and hold his left leg, wincing in pain.

"Stop being so creepy, old man!" Himeko warned, massaging her cheek muscles.

"You know what, I liked you better when you didn't talk," Leorio yelled, still in pain, "You could have at least held back when kicking."

"I did hold back quite a lot," Himeko informed him, before she went and sat down in one of the seats in the waiting area again. After getting over the pain, Leorio went and joined her, sitting in the seat beside her.

"Don't be so stubborn,Kou!" Leorio tried the best to convince her once again, "I don't know what happened between you two, but Kurapika felt quite bad about it."

"I called him a hypocrite, and I mocked him. That's what I did," she admitted, clearly feeling bad about what she had said. "It just came out without me even realising, I didn't mean to say it out loud."

"I doubt Kurapika would take it to heart, but he would feel upset if you don't at least see him off. Who knows when and where we are going to see each other again, we are all going to be busy with our personal things for a while."

"Shut up old man, I already feel bad as it is."

"Then cry!"

"It's not that bad, I don't just cry about everything. Besides, shouldn't you be telling me not to cry?"

Leorio dragged her back on her feet, "Come on, let's go before their airship leaves. You might not be able to see him for a year or two."

"Fine," she gave him a defeated smile, "I'll come along and apologise."

"Now, that's the Kou I know," Leorio smiled, victoriously. Himeko accompanied Leorio back to Kurapika and Melody's waiting area with Gon and Killua also there. Gon was the first person to notice them coming.

"Ah, Kou is here!" He cheerfully announced to everyone.

"Took her some time!" Killua threw in a slight remark after Gon's announcement. After his remark though, no one said anything waiting for either Himeko or Kurapika to say something, but they only stared at each other awkwardly, and the silence made it even more awkward.

"I'm sorry, Kou." Before Himeko could open her mouth and apologise, Kurapika beat her to it. "Thinking back, I did sound a bit selfish telling you not to go, so forgive me. I wish you good luck on your quest, but if you need a hand I want you to call us for help and not go alone."

Himeko ended up blinking a couple of times, trying to process whether Kurapika had just apologised to her and was willing to let her go and fight whoever killed her clan.

"I should be apologising for calling you a hypocrite, although you were just looking out for me," Himeko lowered her head, "So, I'm sorry!"

"_Passengers going to Otaka, are ready to board the airship. Please make your way through the airship."_

The announcement echoed throughout the airport, as if it was planned just after Himeko apologised. It was her cue to leave, but now that she apologised to him, she didn't want to leave.

"_When I wanted to leave, nothing happened and now when I want to stay, they are telling me to board the fricking airship!" _She mentally cursed. She sighed in disappointment, before looking at her friends, "That's my cue to leave, take care and good luck to everybody!"

They watched her leave alone, but Gon ran after her dragging Killua along with him, "Wait up, we are going to come and drop you, Kou!'

Leorio proudly watched them leave, trying not to tear up. "They've grown so much since the Hunter exam, who knows how much they would have grown the next time we'll meet."

While Leorio was busy talking to Zepile on the phone about getting Gon's Hunter license back from the pawn shop, Melody looked at Kurapika, wanting to ask something.

"Is something wrong, Melody?" Kurapika noticed that she was staring at him, wanting to ask a question.

"You lied to her."

"There is no use hiding it from you," he sighed. "I did lie to her, I don't want to see my friends go down the same path as me. It's better for her to just meet her brother and leave things as that."

...

"You can stop here, I can walk the rest by myself."

"Okay!" Gon stopped walking, and stopped dragging Killua along.

"Well, I guess we'll part ways here," Himeko smiled, sadly.

"Yeah." Gon nodded, in a disappointed tone.

"If you two haven't realised yet, we will see each other again sometime," Killua reminded them, "We are only going to meet again."

"Yes, but there is something sad about parting ways," Himeko said. "Oh, that reminds me!"

"Huh?" Killua and Gon tilted their heads when Himeko took off her backpack and started roaming through it.

"Got it!" She took out a chocolate bar wrapped up in just the silver foil. "Here, Gon and I felt bad about eating your chocolate bar so we went and bought you a new one."

Gon's eyes were on that chocolate bar, as Himeko handed it over to Killua, and he had a nervous smile on his face, contemplating whether or not he should tell his friend the truth or whether he should keep the promise he made Himeko and keep it to himself.

"Thanks," Killua accepted the chocolate bar, "I guess you do have your good points sometimes."

"Yep, I sure do!" She smiled. "I got to get going before the airship leaves without me. Bye~"

Gon and Killua watched Himeko rush towards the checkpoint with her backpack in her hand. Killua decided to unwrap the chocolate bar and broke off a piece, making Gon nervously watch him put the piece of chocolate into his mouth and let it melt. A few moments later though, Killua's face froze and that was the cue for Gon to start talking.

"Killua…"

"Make it quick. I'll give you ten seconds to explain yourself!" Killua threatened.

"Kou and I went to buy you bar a chocolate, and Kou suddenly found a chocolate bar with a red chilli on the wrapper and she picked it up and told me to keep quiet about it and-"

"That's enough!" Killua interrupted, before Gon could continue. He scanned the crowd for Himeko, so he could get her back before she leaves, "She's running away!"

With the chocolate bar still in his hand, he ran after her, and Gon ran after Killua but the boys both stopped once Himeko got through the checkpoint after showing the staff her ticket and ID.

_"Made it just in time!"_ Himeko sighed in relief before she turned around to see an angry Killua on the other side.

"Get back here, we have a score to settle!" Killua yelled angrily, from the other side of the checkpoint.

"Gon, Killua, good luck!" She shouted. "Let's meet again once I have found my brother and Gon has found his dad!"

She then smiled and waved before turning back around, and walking on, acting cool but ended up walking into the glass door, "Ouch!"

"Miss, are you alright? Do you need help?" One of the staffs rushed to her side to help.

"Ha! Serves her right!" Killua muttered, before he noticed Gon standing next to him, smiling nervously. He broke off a piece of the chocolate and stuffed it into Gon's mouth.

Gon chewed on the piece of chocolate and paused. "Water! Someone get me water!"

...

"_We will shortly be taking off from Yorknew city, please make sure to fasten your seat belts and raise your headrests. We will be arriving at our destination in two and a half hours-"_

This was all Himeko's brain could take before she had an urge to yawn to express her boredom. She looked around, hardly anyone was listening to the announcement. There were like one or two people who were listening closely to the safety instructions; but they were probably riding the airship for the first time. The others were already fast asleep or doing their own thing like listening to music or reading a book.

"_I could have brought a book with me,"_ she thought.

"Getting ready for take off."

Himeko was getting ready for take off too. She sat still in her seat, waiting for the airship to take off. There is something about take offs and landings that she never liked. It could be the butterflies you feel in your stomach, or the blocked ears you'll get at the end of it. Worst of all was the jet lag, but at least her light was only for a few hours.

As soon as the seatbelt sign disappeared, everyone except the paranoid first timers took their seat belts off and got ready to either walk around or stay asleep. Himeko took her seat belt off but remained in her seat, checking the magazines in front of her.

"_Typical, they just want you to buy their stuff!"_ She thought, as she scanned through the magazines. Nearly all of the items were overpriced, "Which crazy idiot would spend so much money on an overpriced perfume bottle?!"

Just after she blurted out her honest opinion, the woman next to her gave her the worst glare, causing her to silently close the magazine and put it back inside the little pocket in front of her.

"_I guess she is one of those crazy idiots…"_

She looked around once again, trying to see whether there is anyone doing anything interesting, or to at least find someone her age to talk with, but there was no one. Most of the passengers were middle aged, and no one seemed like they were willing to keep her company. Not knowing what else to do, she started to fiddle around with her seat, occasionally receiving glares from the woman sitting next to her, but that didn't exactly stop her. She had come face to face with the notorious Phantom Troupe twice, and survived twice so this glaring woman wasn't scaring her one bit.

Once she was tired of playing around with her seat, she looked up to see how long she had left.

_'1h 59 mins'_

"_Kill me now!" _She groaned before burying her face into her hands, thinking that at least and hour should have gone by with her messing around with the seat (more like trying to break it). She crashed her head back, onto the headrest waiting for the Air Hostesses to pass out snacks and refreshments. "_I hope they have enough peanuts to keep me occupied until we land."_

Himeko ran out of options at this point, and looked at the woman besides her reading a book. She didn't want to start a conversation with her, mainly because she didn't like to talk to strangers unless it was necessary. Instead, she tried to take peeks at the page she was reading, and started reading along.

There were a lot of action happening in the book; first thing they were taking a casual evening stroll outside, next thing they were in the bedroom.

'_He grabs me and yanks me towards him all of the sudden, before he pushes me against the hard wall with no place for me to escape.'_

"_Dayum, that escalated fast!" _She commented in her head.

'_He lifts my chin up and stares straight into my eyes, not leaving them for a second. He pulls me in for a kiss with one hand while his other travels down to my waist.'_

"_What the hell is going on?! They were taking a walk just two pages ago!"_

'_We slowly move towards the bed, -'_

"_Oh my god, they are moving towards the bed!" _She stopped reading and took a moment to prepare herself for what she was going to read next. She fixed her eyes back onto the book and continued reading before the woman could turn the page over. Eventually, she reached the bottom of the page.

'_He stops. "We will continue later," he whispers in his husky voice, before taking off.'_

"What a jerk," she clicked her tongue, before shaking her head at the character in the book, "At least finish what you started!"

The woman next to her turned to Himeko after she expressed her opinion, and huffed. She gave her a look of disapproval for reading along, as she clearly was too young to be annoyed at these kinds of things.

"You see, my parents made me learn about both sexual and asexual reproduction back when I was like six or seven," she tried to explain herself, "Don't worry, I'm educated of all the possible dangers and diseases that could be passed on, and they were definitely doing it the safe way!"

The woman shook her head once again, and turned back to her book, this time making sure that she was holding the book well away from the crazy little girl sitting next to her. Not being able to read anymore, she looked back at the display showing how much time was left until they landed.

'_1h 25 mins'_

She groaned once again, since there was still a lot of time let.

"Excuse me miss, would you like some snacks?" The Air Hostess asked.

"_Yes! Finally!"_ She celebrated. "Yes please, and I'd like some orange juice too."

"Okay, I'll get you some," She watched the Air Hostess pour in some orange juice into a plastic cup, and get a packet of peanuts out of a box. "Here you are, sweetie."

"Thank you, may I have another packet of peanuts?"

"Sure."

"Actually, give me two!"

"There, _two_ _more_ packets of peanuts!" She handed Himeko two additional packets, emphasising on the fact that she gave her two more in a slightly annoyed tone. "Anything else?"

"Nope, I'm good with this for now," she smiled, "I'll call you again if I need more peanuts. You just have to press that blue button, right?"

"Yes.." the Air Hostess sighed, before she left.

After eating peanuts, and more peanuts and even more peanuts, and sleeping for a while, the airship was getting ready to land. There it was, the feeling of butterflies inside her stomach as the airship was slowly descending down.

'_We have arrived at Otaka Airport, the local temperature is 20 degrees celsius. Please remain seated with your seat belts on until the seatbelt sign is off. We had a pleasure flying with you -'_

"_\- and we wish you a pleasant stay!" _Himeko completed the sentence inside her head. "_Just land the damn thing and let me get off!"_

_..._

Once she got off the airship, and got through all the security checks, she was finally able to set foot into her hometown; Otaka. She inhaled the air before exhaling it again.

"Smells like polluted air!" She commented. She looked around at the unfamiliar city, waiting for a miracle to happen and someone to guide her to the places she needed to go to. "Who am I kidding, this is my hometown and I don't know where the fuck I am."

After all, she never stepped out of her house and explored her hometown so she didn't have a clue to where she needed to head to.

"Let's see," she took off her backpack and searched for her Hunter tablet, "It's still quite far away. Maybe I should go exploring before visiting."

Himeko was curious on what her hometown actually looked like. It was ironic how she just felt like any other tourist that came to visit, and bought a guide that told her about her hometown. She managed to enjoy her time there, taking various pictures and sending them to her friends.

* * *

**Kou**:

_I've arrived at Otaka! Take a look at the scenery, isn't it awesome?_

* * *

**Killua:**

_WAIT TIL I GET YOU BACK!_

* * *

**Gon:**

_The plan backfired, Killua fed me the rest of the chocolate bar. Now my tongue feels numb and my lips are burning_

* * *

**Leorio:**

_I'm leaving Yorkshin now, Killua and Gon passed their screening by the way. P.s the view is beautiful!_

* * *

**Kou:**

_Congrats you two, good luck with Greed island. Good luck with your medicine examination, Leorio! P.s KILLUA, YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO GET ME BACK MUAHAHAHAHA… and I'm sorry about that Gon..._

* * *

**Gon:**

_My tongue feels numb..._

* * *

**Kurapika:**

_Good luck, everyone._

* * *

**Leorio:**

_Did Kurapika just text us back?_

* * *

**Killua:**

_Kurapika texted back O_o_

* * *

**Gon:**

_Hi Kurapika!_

* * *

**Leorio:**

_He isn't going to text back for another year, Gon -_-_

* * *

**Kurapika:**

_Hi Gon._

* * *

**Killua:**

_He did it again O_o_

* * *

**Leorio:**

_What sorcery is this?!_

* * *

Himeko laughed at the messages that the boys were starting to bombard the group chat with. She then received a private message from someone.

* * *

**From:** **Kurapika**

_Good luck, Kou. Stay safe!_

* * *

_"Wow, Kurapika really is on a roll today…"_

She replied to his message, thanking him and wishing him good luck with his mission to find his clan's eyes, before looking back at his message and smiling at it like an idiot.

"_It's plain and needs some emotion in it, but it's better than nothing!" _She shrugged and put the phone back in her pocket, "_I'm never deleting that text!"_

After sightseeing, she was starting to feel a little hungry and decided to find a restaurant and eat. She was disappointed having to eat lunch by herself and couldn't deny the fact that she got too used to the boys' company.

"A table for one, please," she smiled at the waitress waiting at the entrance, upon entering the restaurant.

"Yes, please follow me."

The waitress lead her to a small table by the window, where she handed her the menu card after Himeko sat down.

"Please let me know when you are ready to order."

"Thank you."

With that, the waitress left her alone, scanning the menu card. However, now that she was in her hometown, she felt very nervous. She was tensed, and was unsure whether she really wanted to go back home and see the state of it. Was it really a good idea to go; she didn't even know whether the place was still there. There was no one to take care of it, so even if the place was still there, who knew how dirty and run down it would be. The house would be all dusty, and there was no one to take care of the estate.

"_What if the corpses and blood are still in my brother's room?" _She asked herself. There was no one to actually send her relatives off to the other side properly. No matter how harsh her parents were with her studies, they were her parents at the end of the day and they did get her whatever she wanted; as long as it was reasonable of course. "_Maybe I should buy some incense sticks too on the way. Someone has to pay the proper respects so they can rest in peace, after all."_

"Excuse me, are you ready to order?" The waitress snapped her out of her thoughts.

"Oh, sure. Can I just have an hamburger and fries?" She asked. "The large meal by the way, not the small one."

"What drink would you like?"

"Water will do."

"Okay, I will get that for you," the waitress smiled, before she took her order away.

"_Nii-sama should be here too according to Hisoka…" _She remembered. "_I could have at least asked for his number."_

She groaned as she rubbed her temples, before getting out a piece of paper from her pockets. She hesitated a while before unfolding the piece of paper and blankly staring at it.

"Am I really going to do this?" She asked herself. "What has the world come to?!"

* * *

**To: Hisoka**

_Hello, this is Himeko. Would you be able to send me my brother's number?_

* * *

"_Am I really going to send this?"_ She hesitated for a minute or maybe even two, rereading the text before sending it. "_And I sent it!"_

She anxiously watched her phone, waiting for a reply that could come in any minute; or maybe even a sneak attack. The phone finally lid up.

* * *

**Hisoka:**

_Hi Kou-chan ~ How are you?_

* * *

Himeko face palmed, "Great, he is trying to start a conversation."

* * *

**Kou:**

_Great! Do you have my brother's contact details?_

* * *

**Hisoka:**

_Have you eaten yet? :D_

* * *

**Kou:**

_Not yet! Do you have my brother's phone number?_

* * *

**Hisoka:**

_Eat healthy and grow big, and STRONG ~_

* * *

**Kou:**

_DO YOU HAVE MY BROTHER'S PHONE NUMBER?_

* * *

**Hisoka:**

_No -_-'_

* * *

**Kou:**

_Then how did you know that he was in our hometown?_

* * *

**Hisoka:**

_I have my sources ~_

* * *

**Kou:**

_Ok, forget I ever texted you and erase this whole conversation and my phone number from your phone!_

* * *

**Hisoka:**

_I will phone you back when I get any more news on their whereabouts ~ If you find him before that, tell him I said hi! :D_

* * *

She blew her fringe out of frustration, before putting the phone back into her pocket along with the piece of paper, trying to forget the fact that she just had a small conversation with Hisoka.

"_I guess I'll just go home and see if he left me a note or something. If not, then I'll leave a note with my phone number and he'll phone me if he sees it," she thought. "Yes, that sounds like a good plan!"_

"Excuse me, here is your order."

"Ah," she turned over to see the waitress placing the food on the table, "Thank you so much."

Once she left, Himeko was unwrapping her burger to start eating.

"Excuse me," she heard a voice behind her. "Can I join you?"

* * *

**A/n - **Not much action in this chapter, but then again they have to take things easy sometimes! I guess Gon's and Killua's mischief (mainly Killua's) are starting to rub off on Kou now xD

But anyway, I have an announcement. I've got exams starting at the end of May all the way up to June so I don't really know how often I will update, I might even go on a mini hiatus until then, so sorry for leaving you all on a cliff hanger. I will also try and go back to edit the previous chapters because seriously, what was I even thinking when I wrote some of those...

**Moving on to the replies...**

**To Mespirit -** Here is your next chapter :D I know it was a bit dry... Cute pic of Ciel by the way ^^

**To Arcana the Wolf - **I get what you mean... Sleeping at 2/3am and waking up around 6/7am sucks!

Writing about Kou beating up Killua is actually quite fun... but don't worry, they will continue to beat each other up soon. SOON!

Kou hardly used the internet for anything other than Hunter stuff before. Well, now she probably doesn't want to use anything other than the Hunter website anymore...

**To Guest (Abi) - **Thanks for summarising the chapter, my idiot :D I can actually imagine Leorio and Killua trying to trick her into using her powers as an A/c system now, but her using more force on purpose so she actually blows them off their chairs, literally! I don't know what made me write about Hisoka and Illumi at a Karaoke bar either. Well, I can imagine Hisoka there but what would Illumi want there? And you will soon see what Hisoka meant by that!

**To Queechi - **Yep, Kurapika didn't need a wig. He looked prettier without it. He actually looked a bit like Machi with the wig in a ponytail, but I don't think he wants to hear that...I've actually had the idea about her developing flying abilities back when I decided her Nen type and wrote about her training at the dojo; it just fit with her 'wind' hatsu.

And thanks to you I had the image of Illumi playing air guitar while screaming, and Hisoka dancing to Hyuna's bubble pop in my head for such a long time. Why it was Hyuna's bubble pop out of all the other songs out there, I don't even know. I haven't listened to that song in years, but that creepy yet funny image was stuck in my head for some time...

Well, that's all from me. My brother made me a tuna sandwich some time ago and it's just in front of me, ready to be eaten!


	33. Visiting Hometown II

**Note:** If you noticed that there are a less chapters now, don't worry you are not going insane. I'm just editing the story and merging some of my earlier Hunter exam chapters together. You can go and have a look at the first few chapters since I've edited some, but I didn't really change anything major plot wise, so don't worry. Also, please PM or review if there is anything I could improve :D

* * *

Himeko unwrapped her burger, and took a big bite into it before stuffing some fries into her mouth. She took her time chewing as she had all the time in the world to eat before she'd set out to search for her house.

"Excuse me," she heard a voice behind her, "Can I join you?"

She turned around with her mouth still full and gasped at who was standing behind her smiling. Her eyes widened and she forced the food down her throat, washing it down with some water, so she could express her emotions as words.

"Ryusuke?!" She exclaimed, "What are you doing here?"

"My name is Ryosuke…" the black haired boy corrected her, before taking a seat in front of her, "I should be asking you that question. It's like fate, meeting again like this in a restaurant."

"This is my hometown, so I just came to visit for a while."

"Hometown?" He questioned, eyeing the tour guide book on the table, "You look just like any other tourist."

"Well, I'm not exactly that familiar with this place…" She let out an awkward laugh, rubbing her neck, "What about you?"

"I came to sightsee with my friend," he explained. He looked around the restaurant and spotted one of the waitress, "Excuse me, can I place an order?"

The waitress made her way to the table and took his order, and then left to the next customers that wanted to place an order.

"When did you arrive?" Himeko asked.

"A couple of days ago. You?"

"I arrived today."

"Hm, really? So you are going to visit your house after eating lunch?"

"That's what I have in mind."

"Where do you live?"

"Somewhere…"

"You don't know your way home?" Ryosuke asked, "I can help you get home."

"_Crap, not good, not good at all!"_ She panicked.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, my parents will pick me up later," she lied. It was a pretty believable lie, but Ryosuke who knew the truth just sat there smiling, listening to her stories. Himeko had to change the topic. "Enough of me, how did your business at Yorkshin go?"

"My business at Yorkshin?" Ryosuke asked, before he actually remembered. He wanted to attend; or at least sneak into the Underground auction but was told by Hakuryuu to return immediately because the Phantom Troupe was out to stir up trouble. After hearing about the commotion they caused in Yorkshin, he started to regret his decision to leave. He wanted to see everything with his own eyes, so he decided to forget that he wanted to attend the auction in the first place and planned to go the following year.

"Yes," she nodded, "Remember, we met at the market and you told me that you had some business to attend."

"Oh, that! Yeah, I've got it all done!" He lied with a smile plastered on his face.

"What about your friend?" She questioned. Any question that could prevent him from asking her personal questions would do. "Is she doing well?"

"My friend?" He asked. He then remembered telling her about Hakuryuu, and that she believed he was talking about a girl. "Oh, her. She is doing quite well. She came with me to sightsee."

"Shouldn't you be eating lunch with her? I mean, you do like her, right?" She asked, "You kept talking about her when we last met."

Himeko's question threw him off guard. He wasn't shocked by it, instead he was very amused. He found it hilarious, and thought it would be fun to actually play along, so he tried to control his laughter.

"Well yeah, but she is playing hard to get," he sighed.

"That won't do!" She cut in, "You _have _to make the first move. I would wait for a guy to make the first move, so I'm sure she'd wait for you to make the first move too!"

"You think?"

"Yes!" She said with determination.

"Maybe I should give it a try."

"Yes you should, and maybe the next time we meet you could introduce me to her as your girlfriend!"

"Please excuse me," Ryosuke stood up and rushed towards the men's bathroom before letting it all out. He couldn't stop laughing and hit the wall, trying to calm himself down, but it didn't work. "_How are those two even related? The little sister is an angel, she believed everything I said!"_

He looked his reflection in the mirror, and wiped away his tears before taking in a few breaths to calm himself down. When he thought he was done laughing, he broke out into laughter once again imagining the expression on Hakuryuu's face when he found out. He couldn't wait to tell Hakuryuu about all of it, although he won't be as amused as him.

"Stop messing around, Ryosuke!" Ryosuke attempted to imitate what Hakuryuu would say before he snickered. He clutched his stomach as he walked out of the bathroom back to his table, where his food has already arrived.

"Are you okay?" Himeko asked as he sat back down, "Your face is a little red."

Ryosuke started fanning himself, trying to cool himself down. "It's a little hot today, don't you agree?"

Ryosuke helped himself to his fries, before unwrapping his burger and started eating. Since he finally shut up, Himeko continued to eat her own burger. She finished eating and washed down her food with some water. Ryosuke on the other hand, still had some fries left on his tray. Himeko was about to leave when Ryosuke stopped her.

"Wait, let's have some dessert before we leave," he suggested, "To celebrate our friendship I mean."

"I don't know," she hesitated, "_He isn't actually my friend anyway."_

"I'll pay!"

Himeko sat back down immediately, "Deal! Vanilla ice cream for me."

Ryosuke stuffed the remaining fries into his mouth, and washed it down with his drink. He then called the waitress and ordered them both some ice cream to keep Himeko put in her seat until he finished eating.

To break the silence, Ryosuke did a fake cough and tried to start another conversation, "I talked about my crush, how about you tell me about your boyfriend? What kind of guy is he?"

"Boyfriend? I never had a boyfriend in my whole life."

"Then, the boy from last time?" he asked. "The one who was standing outside the window."

"Oh," trailed her voice off, "The white haired kid, around this height with the slanted eyes and the mean look on his face?"

…

"Achoo!" Killua sneezed, "_Damn, someone must be talking crap about me!"_

Gon and Killua just entered Greed Island an hour ago and tried to find their way through the place.

"Come on, Killua," Gon started dragging him along. "Hurry up!"

…

"Yes, that one. He is not your boyfriend?"

"Nope, he is just a guy friend."

"So you don't have a crush on anyone?"

"Well, I do but he is probably one of those really dense types of guys," she sighed, "He is probably not going to answer his phone for the next couple of years."

…

"Achoo!" Kurapika sneezed in the airship.

Melody handed him a tissue, "Be careful, you might catch a cold."

"Thank you," he accepted the tissue, and took out his phone to look at it.

"Is something wrong?" Melody asked.

"No," he shook his head, "But I just got this sudden urge to check my phone for messages."

…

"That does seem frustrating," Ryosuke laughed, "What about your other friends?"

"Well, there is this perverted old man," she started off.

…

"Achoo!" Leorio was the next one to sneeze. He looked around to check whether his flight has landed before fell back asleep, wrapping himself up in his blanket.

…

"But, he isn't that bad at all. He is kinda cool at times," she smiled. "There is also this simpleminded idiot."

…

"Achoo!"

"Bless you, Gon." Killua said. "_Someone must be talking crap about both of us. In my case it makes sense, but who would know enough about Gon to talk badly about him? Well, it could be-"_

…

"Achoo!"

"Bless you, Kou."

"Thank you," she smiled at Ryosuke, "_Someone must be talking shit about me. Must be Killua, he must still be mad about me pranking him."_

…

"-_Nah, she would never talk crap about Gon. But she would talk shit about me..."_

"Come on Killua, you are so slow!"

"I'm coming!"

…

Himeko and Ryosuke continued to talk until both of them finished their dessert. Ryosuke requested for the bill and paid for both of their desserts, and Himeko also paid for her lunch. Himeko gathered all her belongings before she was ready to set off. She didn't come to her hometown to relax, she had some business to get done.

"I should get going," she told him.

"Are you sure you'll be able to make it alone?"

"Yep," she nodded, "My parents will come to pick me up, remember?"

"Yep yep," he smiled, seeing through her lie. "Let's hope that we will meet again soon."

"Yeah, until then, take care Ryosuke!" She returned a smile before she left the restaurant.

Ryosuke watched her leave until she was out of sight, "_The little sister is looking for her big brother, while the big brother is running away from his little sister." _He just sighed at the thought of that, and decided to leave the restaurant too.

After leaving the restaurants, Himeko made a few stops at some shops and bought some incense sticks to take along with her. It was time for her to do what she truly came for, so she put her tourist guide back inside her rucksack and took out her Hunter tablet to head back home. She looked up the directions beforehand, so all she had to do was follow the navigation system.

She followed the instructions and ended up on the outskirts of the city. She was led to a large forest, and she stared hard at it before double checking whether the navigation system was still right.

"_What is it with us Inoues and building our houses deep inside forests?"_

The navigation system told her to keep walking down the path, until she had to make a few detours. She turned right, she turned left, and just like that, hours went by with her just trying to find her way home. She was about to throw the tablet on the floor and step on it, when she could finally see a concrete wall peeking out in the distance. That must have been it, the second wall surrounding the Inoue household.

She headed towards that direction and was able to see the wall a lot more clearly, the closer she got to it. After a long distance run, she finally reached her clan's household. She broke out into a smile; she was finally back home after five whole years. But that was when she realised.

"_Where is the front door?"_

She only knew what it looked like inside, and she never had to get past the second wall as a child, so she didn't know how to get back in. She looked around trying to find a door, but she had little luck. There was no way to get inside past the concrete wall. Thinking back, she could remember her father talking about some sort of secret passage that would lead them inside, but she had no idea where it could be. To be honest, he father didn't even tell her about the secret passage, she just eavesdropped in a conversation and 'overheard' it. She tried to think of all the possibilities to get in, and sighed as she could only think of one solution.

"_I can't believe I'm going to break into my own house…"_

After securing her backpack and sword, she looked up at the massive wall in front of her. This wall was a lot higher than the one back at the side clan, so she was starting to doubt whether she could actually climb up. She took in a deep breath and hoped for the best before she started to climb the monstrous wall. She made sure to climb with caution, as one wrong step could make her fall back down. She slowly managed to reach the top, and looked back at the forest behind her. The fact that she was up this high made her gulp, but putting that aside, she prepared herself to see what was going to be up ahead of her. She didn't have a clue on what her family estate would look like at this point, so the fact that she'll be looking at the state of it after all these years frightened her.

After preparing her mind, she opened her eyes, and what she saw ahead shocked her.

"_What the hell?" _

…

"Hakuryuu, I'm back!" Ryosuke announced as he entered the hotel room he shared with Hakuryuu. He looked around the room, and found him reading a newspaper at the coffee table. "Guess who I met in town today!"

Hakuryuu spared him a single glance, before he looked back down at the newspaper, "What is it Ryosuke?"

"I don't know how she got here, but I'm guessing it's because of Hisoka," he said, "Never mind, I saw your sister. She came here after hearing that you were going to be here."

Hakuryuu kept reading his newspaper in silence.

"She said that she wanted to go and visit her home, so I think she wants to go visit your family estate."

"Why are you telling me all this?" He asked in an indifferent tone.

"You don't want to meet her, so I'm telling you before you run into her."

A sly smiled crept onto Hakuryuu's face, as he put the newspaper back down on the coffee table and stretched before he stood up from his chair.

"Why are you so quiet? Shouldn't you be all like 'stop playing around, Ryosuke' at this point?" Ryosuke mocked, attempting to reenact something Hakuryuu would say at this point.

"Thanks for the information," Hakuryuu said as he picked up his full sleeved, black turtleneck from his bed. He proceeded to put it on, and walked past Ryosuke towards the door, "Excuse me, I have some business to attend." Ryosuke sensed that something was odd about him, so he blocked Hakuryuu's way to prevent him from exiting the room. "What are you doing, Ryosuke?"

"Where are you going?"

Hakuryuu scoffed at him; he wasn't able to keep the facade up anymore.

"You're not Hakuryuu!" Ryosuke finally caught on, and when he noticed that his partner wasn't acting like himself, his expression darkened. "I'm going to repeat myself once again, where are you going?"

Hakuryuu ignored him and reached out for the doorknob, but Ryosuke grabbed his wrist before he could proceed.

"If you don't want any trouble, then I suggest that you let go of my hand," Hakuryuu warned, narrowing his eyes at Ryosuke.

Ryosuke's grip tightened, "I asked you a question. Where are you going?"

"Do you really want to know?"

Unlike Hakuryuu, Ryosuke didn't seem amused at all. His grip tightened further, his nails piercing into his skin, waiting for an answer. When blood started to drip down from Hakuryuu's wrist, he pulled his hand away, licking the droplets of blood off his hand.

"That really hurt, you know," however, in contrast to his words, Hakuryuu just seemed very amused at how serious Ryosuke was acting. "I just wanted to take a walk outside, and finish what I started five years ago."

Hakuryuu reached out for the doorknob once again, but Ryosuke slapped his hand away, "I'm not letting you walk out of that door!" Ryosuke declared firmly.

Although it all seemed like a game to him at first, Hakuryuu was starting to grow irritated with how Ryosuke was starting to act. Jokes aside, he didn't like anyone getting in his way; he despised it. He used his injured right hand to grab Ryosuke by the throat, and push him against the hard wall, "Don't tell me what to do, _Ryo_."

"I'm not going to let you hurt Hakuryuu's little sister!" Ryosuke tried to release himself from Hakuryuu's grip.

"When did you get so close to her?" Hakuryuu mocked and continued to taunt him, "I hope you realise she isn't _your_ little sister. You don't even have a family."

Not being able to control himself anymore, Ryosuke grabbed Hakuryuu by the neck and started crushing it, "So what if I was dumped as a kid, I've decided to look out for Hakuryuu's younger sibling until he is able to do it himself."

Hakuryuu's grip loosened as he started to choke, but that didn't stop Ryosuke. He continued to choke the demon that possessed his partner's body and without himself even realising, sparks of fire appeared on his fingertips that were starting to burn Hakuryuu's skin.

"I hope you still remember that this is that bastard's body," Hakuryuu reminded him, struggling to form words, "If you hurt this body, the bastard's going to suffer the consequences."

Hearing those words, Ryosuke's grip loosened and Hakuryuu fell on his knees, trying to regain his breath. However, before he could do so, Ryosuke knocked him unconscious and moved him over to the bed, watching over him until he regain consciousness. He looked at the scars left by his Nen on Hakuryuu's neck and clenched his fists. If he wasn't reminded that he was actually going to burn Hakuryuu's neck, then not even he knew what would have happened. He was going to lose total control just because of one little insult.

As the warm, light rays hit Hakuryuu's face, he finally opened his eyes and looked around the room. He slowly tried to get out of bed, but groaned due to the sharp, throbbing pain in his head. Ryosuke rushed over to his side to help him up and handed him a bottle of water to make him feel better.

"Thanks," Hakuryuu thanked him, and took a couple of gulps of water. He then set the water bottle aside. "Did I do something again?"

"You were about to," Ryosuke smiled in relief, "But I somehow managed to stop you without hurting you too much."

That was when Hakuryuu felt the hot, burning sensation on his neck, "Burn scars?"

"I'm sorry," Ryosuke rubbed his neck sheepishly, "You kinda pissed me off, so I accidentally hurt you."

"Which one was it this time?" He questioned, rubbing his temples, "The child? The psychopath? The sadist?"

"Psychopath."

"What did you tell him?"

Ryosuke told him about his encounter with Himeko around two hours ago, and thought that it was probably Hisoka that told her about their whereabouts. He also mentioned that she wanted to visit their house, and that she would probably wait there for a few days, waiting for her brother.

"What does she think she is doing, associating herself with people like Hisoka?" Hakuryuu sighed in frustration.

"Are you worried about your sister?" Ryosuke asked, giving him a teasing smile.

"Of course not, I'm just hoping that girl starts minding her own business."

"Wouldn't it be better to tell her yourself? She'll be at your family estate, so you can just tell her face to face."

"We didn't come here on a vacation. We received a request, and we are due to meet our clients in two hours, so get ready. Once we are done here, we can leave."

* * *

**A/n - **I literally wrote this chapter little by little. Never knew it was this hard to write serious parts until today...

Well, I hope you all learnt a little more about Hakuryuu and Ryosuke. What do you think is the deal with them? Any guesses?

Also, what did Kou see at her family estate that shocked her?

You'll find out in the next chapter! Toodles :D

Replies to Reviews

To Queechi - Kou just eats anything that tastes good! I still haven't started my exams. Got 11 in total, but afterwards I don't need to go to school anymore (YES!). Well, not until september... And as for my nickname, you can call me L or Lu (those are the only two sane nicknames I've got)

To Arcana the wolf - Surprise, an update before exams xD I'm glad you enjoyed the texting part, I had fun writing those.

To lolipop-sama - Thanks and yes, poor Gon.

To Abi - Yep, Kou is a closet pervert and she just started discovering it after hanging out with so many boys (especially the three at the dojo). You know Kurapika texting reminds me of a certain someone xD I hope she never reads this though. Also, Hisoka might or might not text her again in the future, and you were right with your guess. Congrats gurl!


	34. Visiting Hometown III

"_What the-"_

Himeko looked at the sight in front of her. Her family estate, the very estate that was attacked five years ago was still in tact. She looked around not able to believe her eyes. After all these years she expected the place to be a wreck with weeds growing all over the place and the grass being overgrown. However, everything was maintained very well and there was nothing different from how she remembered it. No matter how much the image of the estate being a mess scared her, the estate still being how it was five years ago scared her even more. It set her mind at unease.

Without further ado, Himeko slowly climbed down the wall still trying to process everything she had seen so far. The estate wasn't empty; someone was living here for sure and whoever it was, they were going to hear a piece of her mind.

The possibility of it being the murderers from five years was already off the list. After all, a criminal doesn't return to the site of the crime let alone come back every once and then to maintain it. It must have been an outsider setting foot onto private territory and she wasn't happy with that. Sure, Himeko liked to talk about giving the clan members freedom and breaking down the walls between the clan and the outside world, but someone trespassing onto her family's resting place wasn't what she was talking about.

She thought about all the possibilities while walking down the path. While observing the place, she started to get more and more creeped out. The flower fields in the distance were all well kept, the grass and trees were cut and the more she looked around, the more it reminded her of how it looked like before the massacre.

"_No ordinary human would be able to climb a wall like that, even I had trouble doing so," _she thought. "_Using the secret entrance would be out of the question too since very few knew about it. Even I don't know where that is!"_

Besides, whoever massacred her clan back then didn't spare any of the guards or servants of the clan either. There was no way in hell that someone would have gotten out of there alive; after all she only survived because whoever caused all that ruckus wanted a few bucks by selling her. If it was an outsider, then she had to be careful. Whoever it was, he or she seemed strong being able to climb that monstrous wall.

A wave of deja-vu hit her while she continued walking. She was rarely allowed to walk past the first wall but the very few times she did, she remembered it well. The distance between the first and the second wall were a couple of kilometres, so it took her a while to make it close to the inner wall. She was on the look out for anything strange, and she couldn't attract any unwanted attention either so she remained in Zetsu form. But as for now, all she saw was the well kept trees and fields of flowers.

After a while, she was able to see the inner wall. She was getting closer to the mansion. However, once she got close enough to the wall, she saw something that caught her attention immediately. She rushed over to the site at once, not wanting to believe her eyes.

A memorial site.

She moved through the site and found a grave for every single member of the clan that was killed in the massacre. Her grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, parents; this was their eternal resting site. For some reason, it set her mind at peace. Her family was properly sent off to the other site, but then again it raised another question.

"_Did Hakuryuu nii-sama do this?"_

Her question was answered when she spotted two memorial stones right at the end.

'_In memories of the young Hakuryuu Inoue who went missing on xx-xx-xxxx'_

'_In memories of the young Himeko Inoue who went missing on xx-xx-xxxx'_

It couldn't have been Hakuryuu. He wouldn't have had a reason to create a memorial stone for himself. No matter how much she thought about it, she couldn't come up with a good conclusion. At this point, the possibility of it being Hakuryuu or an outsider was crossed out; but if someone knew the names of every single member of the clan then it meant that he or she must have had some kind of affiliation with the clan.

She stopped thinking about it and looked into the distance to see a similar site with memorial stones. There were quite a lot of them and they probably belonged to the deceased guards and servants.

"Excuse me," she heard a deep voice behind her, "You are trespassing on a private property. I have to ask you to leave immediately!"

Himeko turned around to see who the voice belonged to and was surprised to see a familiar man standing in front of her. However, the man seemed even more surprised to see her.

"Himeko ojou-sama?" He couldn't believe his eyes. The girl that went missing five years ago was standing in front of him along with all the other members of the clan that were forever lost. "Is that really you, ojou-sama?"

"You are…" Himeko was just as surprised as him. "Sebastian!"

Sebastian was one of the servants at the mansion. Moreover, he was Hakuryuu's personal attendant. A tall man with pale skin, black hair with a few white strands of hair in his late forties.

"It really is you!" His hands were shaking, not able to contain his emotions. He thought the siblings of the Head were long lost and that he wouldn't be able to see them ever again, but he was wrong. "I was worried when I couldn't find you or your elder brother. I can't express how glad I am that you survived. All these years, I was wondering whether I could ever see you and your elder brother again."

"Well, there is a long story behind all of it," she said before she looked at all the graves. "I'm glad that you could make it out alive, Sebastian."

"How rude of me. Please, let us go inside and talk."

With that, he lead her inside the mansion and made some tea for Himeko. He placed the cup on the table before pouring the tea in for her and stood back up, waiting for her to give him an order just like the old days.

"Please, have a seat." She said. "You don't have to act so formal around me anymore. I'm far from a Princess or anything."

"Very well." He said before taking a seat in front of her. He watched Himeko slowly sip on her tea, trying to process everything that had happened so far. She then set the cup down on the table.

"I was able to survive five years ago." She started to tell. "I woke up that night, not being able to sleep. When I woke up however, I noticed that there weren't any guards around. At first I thought they were slacking off as usual, but when I checked my parents', cousins', grandparents', aunts' and uncles' rooms, no one was there. With no other place left to search, I looked in my brother's room to see him heavily injured and everyone else who was missing in their rooms, dead."

Himeko continued to tell him every single detail of that night. Her brother told her to run as it wasn't safe for her so she abandoned everyone, even her injured brother back inside the room to make it out alive. She wasn't lucky enough to escape the mansion and was knocked out. When she woke up, she was somewhere else. She stopped right there, not wanting to reveal too much about herself to him.

"What happened afterwards?" He asked.

"I somehow had to survive, so I had to work for it over all these years."

Sebastian was starting to feel uneasy, "To think that someone of your status had to dirty your hands with all those common household chores…"

"No, it's alright." She smiled. "I had to do something in order to get a roof over my head and some food."

Sebastian started to talk about how he survived. Not many people were allowed to pass into the outside world past the second wall, but Sebastian was one of the very few people who was. The fact that he survived, you could just call it dumb luck. He went away for two days and returned to see the clan and every single servant and guard murdered. Not only that, he also noticed that Hakuryuu and Himeko went missing.

"It was really nice of you to send everyone in the clan and all the servants off to the other side," Himeko said. "But you shouldn't stay here any longer. The estate has become a lonely place. It's large but empty. You will be living a lonesome life if you stay here any longer."

According to him, he hadn't left the estate. He spent his days there, taking care of both the mansion and the land. He left for the town if he was in need for anything, but other than that, he remained there. But serving the Inoue clan required a lot more than just that. Servants and guards would have to live within the walls, which meant that they didn't have an opportunity to have a family outside. She knew that Sebastian lived alone and didn't bother getting married even after the massacre. He stayed true to the clan.

"I have devoted my life to serve the Inoue clan until I die. I have to hold my word to repay the clan's kindness."

Himeko sighed. "There is no more clan to serve. Please, don't try to bear the load of all the servants on your shoulders."

"But you are alive, aren't you?" He asked. "In that case, I will devote my life to both you and Hakuryuu-sama. Please, stay here at the mansion. Someone with noble blood running through their veins shouldn't be going around, serving commoners."

"I'm sorry, but I can't stay!" She turned his offer down without second thought. "I've gotten too used to the outside world, I think I've found a place where I belong to already."

"But, Himeko-sama."

Himeko interrupted him, "My brother is still alive, and he is in Otaka right now. I swear that I will find him and bring him back as the clan's true heir. I will help set up the clan again, but that's about everything I will do."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I have no intentions of returning to the life I lead five years ago," she answered. "I'm satisfied with the new life I have found a while ago. I admit that I'm selfish, but that doesn't mean that I won't support my brother into rebuilding the clan. I won't be able to support him the way my parents wanted me to, and I won't be able to stand beside him at all times but I will do everything in my power to help him stand up straight as the proud and rightful heir my parents wanted him to be."

After finishing her tea, she had finished her business at her family estate. Her mind was at ease that there was someone looking after her family's grave and the mansion, but she now knew that her brother never visited the place in the past five years. Spending time at the mansion was going to be a waste of time. If her brother were to come to visit, Sebastian would be there and she gave him her contact details. She couldn't just rely on staying at the estate, there is a good chance of him being in town so she had to start looking for him before he decided to leave.

She stood up ready to leave, "Thank you for the tea, but I'll have to go now. Please contact me if my brother shows up here."

"Wait!" He stopped her. "Your parents didn't want you to just stand beside you brother, they wanted you to rule with him."

"That's no good then. I'm a fighter, not a ruler," she turned around and smiled at him. "Besides, I have some idiotic friends I can't leave alone. They'll miss my company too much!"

Sebastian watched the girl walk out. The girl he once served five years ago grew up, almost to the point where he couldn't recognise her anymore. She had become a lot more determined and had matured over the period of hardships. She had mentioned that she took the infamous Hunter exam, but that passionate look in her eyes made him trust her. She was willing to do whatever she had set her eyes on. He was confident that one day, the clan will become lively again. He won't be lonely anymore; he will finally have a clan to serve. He smiled to himself before clearing away the cup.

Half an hour after Himeko left the mansion, Sebastian set out again. Himeko was long gone so he walked towards the memorial site of the clan, only to find a single flower and incense stick lit on each one. Not just that, the very last memorial stone looked different from afar. When he got closer, he noticed that something was engraved on it.

'_In memories of the young Himeko Inoue who was lost on xx-xx-xxxx and returned on xx-xx-xxxx.'_

...

Ryosuke and Hakuryuu return back to the hotel they were staying after meeting their client, and discussing their task. Once they entered the room, they started packing their belongings up. Neither of them carried many things around, it was just a couple of spare clothes and essentials. They were always on the move and couldn't risk being in the same place for too long.

"Are you really going to keep doing this?" Ryosuke asked the quiet Hakuryuu.

Hakuryuu turned around, "What do you mean, Ryosuke?"

"For someone like me it make sense." As a boy who was dumped in Meteor city as just another waste of society, Ryosuke had no where to go. A child that did not exist according to society; a child that was perfect for committing crimes. That was young Ryosuke. He would be sent to set different houses and buildings on fire, killing tens to hundreds of people. Ironic isn't it? His Nen turned out to be perfect for the little arsonist he was. Killing people in the fire, and innocently watching the buildings crumble down with his large, red orbs was how he grew up, but to him Hakuryuu was different. "You aren't like me Hakuryuu. You had wealth and status. It isn't too late for you to go back to what you were."

"If you are trying to make me quit and go back to meet my sister, it won't work!" He declared firmly, "I'm not going back to become the heir anymore, and I'm not going to let _Ryuu_ finish what he started back then."

"He won't be able to because he is _your_ split personality and you are in control!"

"Do you know how it feels to regain consciousness and being surrounded by your deceased relatives and finding your hands tainted in their blood?" He questioned, thinking back to his guilty past, "I wasn't able control him back then, I wasn't able to control him today and I won't ever be able to control him. All I can do now is wait for Ryu to gain full control of my body, and my sister will speed things up for him."

Once a criminal, always a criminal; that was something Hakuryuu had always told himself. Whether or not his split personality had done the deed didn't matter at all, it was him who had created his split personality in the first place. His split personality was created to shield him from all the emotional suffering he felt as a child, but in return it caused his family great grief.

Five years ago, Hakuryuu knew something was wrong the moment he saw the corpses of his dead relatives in his room but he was confused. There was blood on his clothes and his hands, and to completely snap himself out of it he used the very knife in his hand to stab himself. However, it wasn't until months later he figured out what really happened. Killing his relatives wasn't what he remembered, but he knew something was wrong about him. Not wanting his sister to share the same fate as them, he took her outside the mansion and dropped her near the outskirts of the forest so someone could find her and raise her with care. As for himself, he went as far as he could.

Although Hakuryuu made his point and didn't seem like he would stray from it, Ryosuke didn't seem satisfied with it. For their occupation, he was never meant to view Hakuryuu as a friend but trust him more as a comrade. However, after all these years they just grew fond of each other despite their personalities, so Ryosuke couldn't help but worry about him and his sister. He understood that Hakuryuu was distancing himself from her because of his condition, but he also knew how hard Himeko was looking for her brother.

"We've had this conversation a couple of times already Ryosuke, and I'm sticking to my decision. I know what's best for everyone." He was stubborn. Hakuryuu was the genius child of the Inoues and he believed that he was a genius. He couldn't be humble about it because it was true, but that's also one of his major flaws. He believed that he knew best and refused to listen to anyone else's reasonings. Ryosuke knew this.

"There is treatment." He suggested.

"DID* is a complex disorder. There is very little known about it and no cure. Treatments have very little effect and require patients to stay committed. I don't like to waste my time."

Ryosuke sighed at his stubbornness. "Himeko, she is worried about you."

"There is not much I can do about that. If she stays away from me, she'll live. If not, I can't guarantee anything." Hakuryuu explained. "We should get going and complete our request. Let's get going."

"Right!" Ryosuke nodded, watching Hakuryuu leave the room with his bag. Ryosuke looked at his phone for a while before joining him.

…

Himeko has finally reached the town again after two hours of walking. With no other leads to find her brother, she had to look everywhere. Whenever she got a clue to his whereabouts, she gets kicked back to square one. The same thing happened the last time when she went to visit the side clan.

She found a vending machine and inserted a couple of coins before getting a bottle of water out. Exhausted from all that walking, she decided to sit down on a nearby bench and chugged down the water to quench her thirst. She sighed loudly in frustration after she was done and threw the bottle in the nearby bin. Although her sigh caused some heads to turn her way, it didn't help her in the search for her brother. She hoped for a clue to fall down from the sky, although that was just too easy.

_Ring ring_

Just that moment, her phone rang. It could have been Leorio calling to let her know that he landed safely, but it wasn't. The caller ID caught her off guard. It was Hisoka.

She hesitated a little before picking up. After all, it was Hisoka; this perverted-killer-clown-magician guy that stalks Gon and Killua. She picked up and waited for a response.

"Hello~" He greeted her in a sing songy voice. "How is my black kitten doing?"

She shuddered at the sound of his voice and his unusually weird greeting. "What did you call for?"

However, her rude response just left Hisoka silent which worried her. Was he angry? Was he out to get her now? He did know where she was. Those thoughts made her face turn pale.

"What did you call for, nyah~" she tried again, in a more cheerful manner.

"Hm?" He seemed to be quite amused by her response. "Since when did the kitten start to be so polite?"

"Hisoka, why did you call?" She repeated. The other side of the line was quiet again. "Nyah…"

"I received some news concerning your brother's exact whereabouts. Want to know?"

"Seriously?" She asked. "Where is he? Who told you?"

"I have my sources whom I do not wish to reveal. He is heading towards the train station. Platform five. His train will be departing in ten minutes."

Himeko took the phone off her ear to check the time. She had ten minutes left, it was going to be a race against the clock.

"Good luck, little kitten." With that, Hisoka cut the call.

Himeko ran up to a man who was standing at a nearby bus stop. She asked him where the train station was and got directions off him. She couldn't afford to screw her directions up this time, no matter how bad she was with them, she had to make it. According to the man, the station was around twenty five minutes walking distance which left Himeko no other choice but to run. After arriving at the train station, she headed to platform five and saw the train still there with the last few passengers getting inside.

The doors closed as she made her way down the long set of stairs, and once she was finally there it was too late. She looked through the windows from the outside, searching for her brother and finally found a set of blue eyes staring back at her. It was Hakuryuu. But their reunion was cut short as the whistle blew and the train set off to its next destination.

She was so close, but she still failed. It was too late and her brother just slipped through her fingers.

Meanwhile on the train, Ryosuke stared at his phone.

* * *

**To: Hisoka**

_Do me a favour. Tell Himeko that we will be taking the train on platform 5 at 4:50PM. Keep this from Hakuryuu!_

* * *

**From: Hisoka**

_Consider it done ~_

* * *

He took another glance at the conversation before he deleted it. If Hakuryuu found out about it, then it would become complicated. At least Himeko had seen her brother's face, that alone should be enough to set her mind in peace for now. However, he couldn't do much more himself against Hakuryuu's own will. Not only that, he knew that Hakuryuu was stubborn but he also knew that he cared about his sister although he denied it. He wanted his sister to be safe from _Ryuu_ and to do that, he distanced himself from her and started to paint himself as the bad guy to make her stay away from him in the future.

All that family drama exhausted Ryosuke so he decided to take a seat besides Hakuryuu who seemed to be deep in thoughts himself.

"Your sister was right, you are playing very hard to get." He muttered.

Hakuryuu turned to him, "What do you mean?"

"Nothing. Just continue playing hard to get, _honey_." Ryosuke looked at Hakuryuu with an amused expression on his face. Since Hakuryuu didn't understand the joke, he didn't seem very amused. "Don't worry, I know the drill. _'Stop playing around, Ryosuke'_ or something like that."

Hakuryuu just smiled at him before he rested his head back and closed his eyes, trying to calm himself down. He had an assassination job to complete after all.

...

Without having any other place to go to, Himeko decided to book another ticket. It had been a whole two days since her 'meeting' with her brother and she was still upset about it. Sure, she was glad to see him well but that didn't change the fact that she was so close to catching up to him. She just had to wait for another chance now that she has missed it and only god knew when that was going to be. Gon and Killua were unreachable due to the fact that they were already playing Greed Island. Kurapika and Leorio were busy with work, so she didn't have any options left. She left for Kioto to return to the dojo and continue training.

She climbed up the steep stairs leading her to the good old dojo, hearing loud and familiar voices in the front yard. Once she reached the top, she saw Natsume sweeping the fallen red leaves into a neat pile. He was the first one to notice her return.

"Ah, my girlfriend is back!" He announced to the rest of the boys in a calm tone.

Toshiro was the next one to look her way, "Oh great, the brat is back!"

Unlike these two, the third and oldest ones of the boys seemed thrilled. Haruko ran up to her with open arms. "Kou! You are finally back. How I missed my cute little Kou running around, swearing in the dojo!"

However, Himeko who was still bumped out about not being able to see her brother just ignored Haruko being his overly attached self, Toshiro being his rude old self and Natsume simply being Natsume and continued to walk inside, past Sensei's meditation room, into her own room where she slammed her bag in one corner and just dropped down onto the floor.

She fell asleep.

* * *

*DID - Dissociative Identity Disorder; formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)

**A/n:** Can't believe I finished writing this chapter while fighting with my brother. That little shit -_- Well, my first exam is this wednesday but I wanted to release this before that. I'm sorry if this chapter was boring!

Also, thank you to all the readers once again. 70 followers and 59 favouriters?! Um... let me just go and calm down...

**Replies to Reviews**

**To Mikamizu Mouri -** Thank you, and I hope you did well on your finals too! And I also like your new username :D

**To Arcana the Wolf -** I'm sorry... I've deleted another chapter... Well, no worries, I'm not going to merge any more chapters, just need to do some editing for the remaining chapters. I laughed reading you recap the sneezing battle xD And yep you guessed right. Hak does have split personalities. He isn't sure himself how many he has so he only mentioned the three that come out the most.

**To Queechi -** Sorry for making you leave the library... I haven't been in one for years XD and sorry for making you review on another chapter...

**To SlightlyYandereMelissa -** You are slightly yandere? Remind me not to like the same guy as you... and yeah, I hate dolls but I love horror movies. If anyone knows any good ones, please recommend them to me! Thank you for adding me to your fave author list!

**To Haine7 -** Thank you for review, I hope you liked this chapter! I'm glad you like this story and I hope you are looking forward for future chapters :D

**Edit**

Not many people are going to see this since I'm adding this bit to the author's note like weeks after I released the chapter. Silly me...

Back to the point! Okay, my exams end on the 22nd of June so until then no chappies. Sorry guys :( But after that I'm free until like september so I'll update as much as I can. Also, I got a Deviant Art account now and if I sketch pics of my OCs, they'll be there for you to check out. I've already uploaded one and the link to my account is on my profile so if anyone is curious on how Himeko looks like you can check it out (although I can't promise it being top notch).

Well, that's it. See you at the end of June :D


	35. Return to the Dojo

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 35**

_Return to the Dojo_

_..._

Half an hour has past since Himeko collapsed in her room after throwing her bag and katana aside. She had was at her limit and couldn't take it anymore. The past couple of days were exhausting and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't sleep.

She had a lot on her mind and Hakuryuu wasn't the only thing. She wondered why Hisoka was helping her out so much without asking her for something in return. He mentioned having a so called 'source' to get information from meaning her brother must have found a companion. That wasn't all, she couldn't help but think about the lone servant back at their estate. He was going to wait at the estate until someone came back for him to serve. In a way, she felt guilty after selfishly telling him that she won't be returning, but it also made her proud. The Inoues had such loyal servants and she felt honoured being served by them. It made her want to work harder in order to restore the clan to how it was before.

With all these thoughts in mind, she couldn't get much sleep. She started to worry whether she was starting to develop insomnia. It sounded pretty harmless at first but for people like Himeko, Toshiro, Natsume and Haruko, sleep and food were vital. The drug enhances their body's natural metabolism and if they do not get the required amount of sleep and food, their body would be easily fatigued.

After doing their chores, Haruko went to check up on Himeko. The fact that she came to visit without notifying them first was surprising enough, but since she's arrived they haven't heard a sound from her. However, after he slid the door open he became worried seeing her asleep in the middle of the room. She didn't bother washing up, changing her clothes or even laying out a futon before falling asleep. Himeko was quite lazy, but Haruko knew that she would have at least done all those three things before falling asleep.

He quietly tiptoed to the middle of the room, crouched down and checked her temperature. It was a little warmer than he expected, but nothing to worry about. She clearly needed rest for now and it was evident that she had overworked herself over the past few days. The temperature would go back down after she gets a good few hours of sleep. He left the room after placing a pillow under her head and covering her body with a blanket.

Lunch was served when Haruko entered the dining room and the other two boys and Sensei were waiting for him and Himeko to join but were surprised when only one of them joined them for lunch. They waited for Haruko to sit down in his seat and start talking on his own.

"She has a slight temperature. Let's just let her rest for a bit and she'll be fine," he assured them before he helped himself to some of the food. Seeing him casually starting to eat, Natsume, Toshiro and Sensei knew it wasn't anything too serious so they ended up joining him. "Toshi, Himeko contacted you a while ago hasn't she? Did she say anything?"

Toshiro thought about it and tried to recollect everything Himeko spoke to him over the phone the other day. "There wasn't much to be honest. She said something about wanting to learn Hatsu to enter this game called Greed Island. She had two go through a screening with two of her friends in order to play the game so she just wanted tips on developing a Hatsu on her own."

"Greed Island?" Natsume raised a brow.

"Yes," Toshiro nodded. "That was the game she mentioned. Have you heard of it?"

"It's an overpriced video game created by Hunters for Hunters. You have to be able to use Nen in order to play," he explained. Natsume was quite interested in computers and technology. The fact that he has heard of Greed Island didn't surprise the others at all, but the fact that Himeko was interested in a game like Greed Island surprised him. "Why would she want to play a game like that?"

"Apparently one of her friends' father left a clue on his whereabouts in that game. Her friend is looking for his father, so I guess she wanted to help him."

"Doesn't it mean that she failed the screening if she came back? What about her friends then?" Natsume asked.

"It's possible that she is the only one that failed the screening," Haruko explained, "Remember when we trained Himeko? We only told Himeko about her friends' training results after she finished training herself but two of her friends mastered Nen by the time she started to get the hang of Ren. Those two are very fast learners considering the fact that their teacher used Baptism to teach them, so I wouldn't be surprised if those two passed and Himeko failed."

"Aren't we being a bit too harsh on her?" Toshiro asked. He felt like their personalities were a little out of place. He was meant to be the brutally honest and mean one while Haruko and Natsume are meant to be doting on Himeko. "We have to consider the fact that all three of them failed too. None of them knew Hatsu when she last spoke to me."

"You're right. But it still doesn't explain why she came back alone and why she took so long to come back when the screening happened a couple of days ago." Haruko added.

"We can check the messages on her phone…" Natsume suggested.

"How many times am I meant to remind you children that it is rude to keep the food waiting?" Sensei interrupted. While the boys were discussing the mystery of Himeko's unexpected return to the dojo, Sensei finished his food and gathered up his plates. "It is bad to be overly curious, so wait until she wakes up to hear the answers."

With that, Sensei took his place away and left the boys alone to eat. But after the coast was clear, Toshiro looked at Natsume. "You know what to do!"

Natsume replied by giving him mischievous smile, "Consider it done!"

After eating and clearing the plates away, the trio went to Himeko's room to see her fast asleep. They quietly made their way towards her rucksack lying in the corner and opened it. Natsume rummaged through the bag, throwing out whatever he wasn't looking for. That included her brand new toothbrush, toothpaste tube, hairbrush, her change of clothes, underwear, tourist guide of Otaka and many other minor things she had inside her bag, not noticing that most of those things landed on Himeko sleeping a few metres behind them. After throwing out nearly all the content of her bag, he finally found her weirdly shaped bug phone right at the bottom of the bag.

Natsume looked at both Toshiro and Haruko whose eyes were fixed solely on the phone in his hand. Although Himeko was only thirteen, it didn't change the fact that she a girl and probably had all kinds of girly secrets saved in her phone. She could have had a boyfriend whom she never talked about.

Luckily for them, Himeko didn't have a passlock on her phone. It was such her phone and she doubted that anyone would be interested in the private life of a teen so she never really bothered to put on a passlock. He unlocked the phone and saw her wallpaper was quite simple. It was just a picture of her friends and her that she took while she was in Yorkshin.

That aside, Natsume proceeded to check her messages like they initially intended to. They expected a message from someone they knew like Gon, Killua, Kurapika and Leorio whose names they've heard before, but instead they found something interesting.

"The last two days she's only sent messages to someone called Hisoka." Natsume informed them. He couldn't recall her mentioning that name even once and neither could the other two. It could have just been a new friend she met during her stay in Yorkshin but reading the messages they thought otherwise. Over the past two days, only Himeko has sent him messages and most of them asked for the whereabouts of her brother. It was painful to read how desperate most of those messages sounded. Hisoka hasn't replied even once over the past few days and the only replies he sent were on the day of her arrival in her hometown.

"This seems serious." Haruko informed them. In their perspective, it seemed like Hisoka was either holding her brother hostage or had some kind of information on her brother that he was blackmailing her with. Either way, this Hisoka character seemed really dodgy to them.

"Check the phone calls," Toshiro told Natsume. Natsume proceeded to check the phone calls she's made over the past few days.

Over two days, she's called Hisoka 187 times but none of the calls seemed successful. Hisoka called her once three days ago, but that was all they knew. Natsume went back to see whether there were any messages from Himeko's friends and found the group chat. They found out that Himeko left Yorkshin to visit her hometown after hearing the news of her brother being there. She left on the day of the screening meaning she didn't take part in it. Gon and Killua passed the screening and were probably in Greed Island already. Leorio went back to study for exams while Kurapika left for his job.

"So she didn't fail. She just left for her hometown." Haruko concluded. "She didn't find her brother and came back here."

"Doesn't that mean that our dojo is like a last resort to her?" Toshiro raised a brow. "That pisses me off a little."

"Try calling this Hisoka person!"

Natsume proceeded to press the call button and called Hisoka.

'_Sorry but this number is currently unavailable. Please try again later.'_

"It's no use. His phone is switched off." Natsume informed them. "It might have been switched off for the past two days which might have been the reason why none of her calls were picked up."

"You know, lying here with your own panties on your face while listening to three guys going through your phone just sucks!" Himeko retorted, knowing that the boys were finally done snooping around.

Natsume shoved her phone back inside her backpack before all three of them turned around to see Himeko getting up.

"You were awake?" Haruko chuckled nervously while sheepishly rubbing his neck.

"If you three want to snoop around then at least use Zetsu!" She complained. "I feel a little insulted by the fact that you all came in so carelessly, not bothering to hide your presence."

Himeko folded the blanket after removing all the things Natsume threw out of the backpack and set it aside. She then collected all the sets of clothes that were thrown around the room while the three boys just nervously watched her every move hoping she wasn't going to give them an earful. However, to their surprise she took out a hakama out of the closet and picked up a towel before quietly making her way out of her room, leaving the boys dumbfounded.

They guiltily left her room before shutting the door and watched her enter the bathroom. She was probably going to take a bath now that she was feeling a little better.

Inside the bathroom, she set her towel and hakama aside and started filling the bathtub before she decided to take a look at herself in the mirror.

"_Wow, talk about looking miserable…" _she sighed, taking a look at her messy bed hair that was all tangled up and the dark bags underneath her eyes. She stopped the water again and left the bathroom. The boys curiously looked out of their room since it hasn't even been five minutes since she entered the bathroom. She would usually spend hours inside until her fingered and toes were all shriveled up like raisins.

They continued to watch her walk towards her room until she finally reached them.

"Natsu, cut my hair!" She ordered, leaving the trio dumbstruck. Before she left the dojo, she was so proud of her long and silky black hair and just couldn't wait to show it off to the world. The fact that she wanted to cut it surprised them.

Natsume fully opened the ajar door and let her inside, "Do you want it trimmed?"

"No, I want it short again!"

Natsume looked at Toshiro and Haruko who just shrugged. They had no idea what was going on with her. He looked at Himeko and sighed, "Fine. Sit down and I'll get some scissors."

Himeko obediently sat down and waited for Natsume to return with a comb and a pair of scissors. He sat down behind her and started to carefully comb her hair occasionally hearing Himeko wince in pain once in a while when he was trying to get through the knots.

"How short do you want it?"

"To my shoulders."

"Do you want me to trim your bangs too?"

"Yes, they've grown while I was in Yorkshin."

"Okay." Natsume said before he started to cut off her hair. "Is there a reason why you want to cut it all off?"

"It's annoying!" She replied bluntly, "Besides, I don't look good in long hair. It comes in my way when I fight too."

"I think it looks pretty good on you. Did someone say you look bad with long hair?"

"Kinda. Someone just said I look better with short hair."

"Kurapika?"

"No, he didn't even notice that I grew out my hair but I can't exactly blame him for that." She replied with a slightly irritated tone The more questions Natsume asked, the more annoyed she got for some reason. She wasn't annoyed at the fact that Kurapika didn't notice her hair because that would have just been plain selfish. The poor guy was running around the whole city by himself for half a month trying to find the Spiders so something like her hair would have been the least of his worries. She was frustrated at the fact that she didn't really get that far after leaving the dojo more than a month ago. She wasn't much of a help to Kurapika either and neither could she help Gon in the search for his father. She left for her hometown to look for her own brother but although she got so close, she missed him by a minute.

"Why did you come back all of the sudden?" Toshiro asked her.

"I want you all to continue to train me. Gon and Killua are probably training as we speak and Kurapika got strong enough to defeat one member of the Phantom Troupe whom I couldn't even land a punch on if I tried. Leorio too passed his medical exam and just has to continue studying now that he entered medical school. I don't want to fall behind!"

"Who's Hisoka?" Haruko asked, interrupting her.

Himeko slightly turned her head towards him trying not to move too much as Natsume was still cutting her hair. "He is someone we met during the Hunter's exam. A weirdo, someone I can't seem to figure out no matter how much I try. He searches for strong opponents and gets pleasure through fighting them. He's interested in Gon since he has a lot of potential to become a strong opponent in the future and helps us out sometimes in order to help us grow stronger. He seems to know my brother and has some kind of connection with him, so he gives me little hints on his whereabouts. But what irks me most is that someone as shady as him has a connection with my brother."

"Is your brother strong?" Toshiro asked.

"I don't really know myself. He was trained to fight when we were younger but I've never seen him fight so I'm not sure."

"Your brother must be strong in that case." Haruko told her. "Either that, or this Hisoka person is interested in you instead."

"Me?" She asked. "I admit, I am stronger than the average person but I doubt he'd waste his time waiting for someone like me to become stronger. There are a lot of potential opponents for him to go up against in this world after all."

She felt Natsume comb through her hair again, "I'm done cutting."

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it." He smiled back at her while cleaning up the mess on the floor.

"That aside, you mentioned the Phantom Troupe. What exactly happened in Yorkshin?" Haruko asked. "You met the Phantom Troupe?"

"Kurapika's clan was attacked by them a few years ago and Hisoka told him that the Phantom Troupe will be appearing at the auctions which is why we decided to meet up there."

"And you didn't bother telling us about this?!" Haruko snapped. "Do you even know what kind of people the Phantoms are? Just looking at their bounties should tell you."

"If I told you, you wouldn't have let me go. I promised to meet them up before the auctions were to happen."

"Of course I wouldn't have allowed to go. Do you know what kind of people they are?"

"They are people that were once transparent to the world and are starting to earn a name for themselves. They live by their own rules and what they think is justice, but they are also able to shed tears for their comrades. They care for each other but they don't give a damn about the rest of the world. It's truly sickening but I can't help but pity them either. We were caught and held by hostage twice so I was able to get a good look at them. At first, they all looked cold and terrifying but I somehow came to understand that deep inside they are still humans just like us but just a lot more confused." She hated the Troupe for everything they did. She knew what it felt like to be left alone in this world and having her relatives murdered in just one night so she couldn't sympathise with them, but they did make her curious. "_Kurapika probably stopped hunting them too after seeing how much they looked out for each other. He was confused on what to do."_

Haruko heard enough. He sighed before he got up and hit her on the head leaving the other two boys awestruck. They least expected him out of all people to hit her out of anger but in his opinion, she deserved it and Himeko had it coming. "Go and take a shower, I'll go and make you something to eat."

"_Figures, they made lunch and ate it all by themselves."_

…

"Thank you for the food!" She said before she picked up her chopsticks. She looked at the boys next to her who did the same. "Besides, why are you all eating again?"

"Listening to your stories made us hungry," Natsume replied as he started to eat.

"_Was I really that boring?"_

"Just eat before he finishes everything." Haruko snapped her out of her thoughts before he started to eat.

"'kay!"

"Does it still hurt?"

"Yeah, I can't believe you actually hit me. How dare you!"

"I'm sorry." He apologised while patting her head. "Just don't do something like that again. The fact that you were captured by them twice still makes me feel uneasy."

"At least I didn't join them."

"Join them?"

"Yeah, this old guy with a topknot told Gon, Killua and I to join their group. He even promised to teach me how to use a sword."

Hearing that, Haruko's hand froze with his chopsticks in midair while Toshiro choked on his water. Natsume on the other hand cooly continued eating while listening to her story, "What did you tell him?"

"We obviously refused but he was stubborn as hell!" She sighed. "I told him that I already have someone to teach me how to use a sword and that I have no intentions in getting a new teacher."

Natsume just grinned proudly, "That's my favourite student!"

"I'm your only student…"

"No need to point out the unnecessary details."

"Either way, we'll continue your training tomorrow." Haruko informed. "For today, just eat up and rest."

"Osu!"

…

A new day brings in new opportunities they say, but for Himeko this was just a usual morning at the dojo. She set her alarm to 4:30 knowing at least Natsume sleeps until 5 so that way she doesn't end up doing the chores. She put her futon away and did a couple of morning stretches in her room to prepare herself for the tough day ahead. She then proceeded to freshen up and change.

As she exited the bathroom, she heard shouting coming from the boys' room informing her that they were awake now. Judging by the voices, it was Toshiro and Natsume. She couldn't really understand everything they were fighting about but she managed to pick up on certain words like 'forest', 'shrine' and 'cleaning'.

"_Some things don't change, do they?" _She sighed as she walked down the hallway to the kitchen. At least she didn't have to do the chores as either Natsume or Toshiro woke up after her.

"Good morning." Haruko greeted her as she entered the kitchen. "You're up early."

"I set my alarm half an hour early because I didn't want to clean."

"How smart of you Kou! That's my little gir-" Himeko punched him in the stomach before he could jump and pull her into a hug.

"Pass me a knife, I'll cut the vegetables."

While Toshiro and Natsume were cleaning the dojo and Sensei was doing his usual meditation in the morning, Haruko and Himeko made breakfast. While Haruko finished the cooking, Himeko went to set the dining table and eventually everyone gathered up waiting to fill their stomach with food to fuel them for the rest of the day.

Like always, it was survival of the fittest. First come, first serve and Himeko learnt her lesson well. She had to eat quickly in order to get enough food for herself so the table was quiet. As always, Sensei was the first one to leave followed by Haruko who had a job to complete. She completely forgot the fact that those three were actually contract Hunters as they hardly did anything other than train at the dojo. According to the boys, Haruko received most of the job offers out of all three of them mainly because he was quite capable and employers usually found a liking to him. He also had a lot more experience compared to the other two.

In the end, Himeko, Toshiro and Natsume were the only ones left at the table. It took her a while to notice but the boys were giving her strange looks. Whatever it was, she had to be careful. They were obviously up to something.

"Say, want to go through some special training?" Toshiro asked.

"Special training?" Himeko raised a brow. "Cleaning the dojo? Sweeping the leaves? Washing the plates? Doing your laundry?"

"None of those. You see, there is a shrine in the forest-"

Before he could finish his sentence, she cut in. "No thanks! It has something to do with cleaning the shrine so do it yourself!"

"You don't even know that."

"Of course I do, I overheard you and Natsu fighting about it in the morning."

Toshiro glared at Natsume before he started shouting, "You idiot, can't you shout a little quieter in the morning?"

"You were shouting a lot louder than me, Toshi." Natsume informed him indifferently.

"_Morons..." _Himeko thought.

"Say Kou-cchi." Natsume started off.

"_Kou-chii? Since when did he call me that?"_

"Didn't you say that your Hatsu was wind?"

"What about it?" Himeko asked with suspicion.

"Want me to tell you a tale?" He asked, but before she could reject his offer he proceeded. "You see, that shrine is the home to Goddess Shinatsuhiko; Goddess of wind."

"_Goddess of wind?" _Himeko knew it was a trap of some sorts, but his story couldn't help but spark her interest.

"That's right. According to Sensei, that shrine contains a lot of secrets about her origin and powers. We were never able to find any of them no matter how hard we tried but it's there somewhere."

"Say, but forest you don't mean the Forest of Shadows do you?"

"That's right, the same forest you were told to stay in for a week to prove yourself worthy of joining this dojo."

"And you are sending me back in there knowing I could die any minute?"

"Hold your horses," Toshiro interrupted, "We have to go and clean the shrine once every three months so we go in there quite frequently. You are stronger than you were before and you know Nen so I wouldn't worry if I were you."

"Okay, I'll go!" Himeko declared, "The secrets are in the shrine somewhere, right?"

"That's right!" Natsume nodded. "I can draw you a map of how to get there."

Without further ado, Natsume got hold of a scrap piece of paper and started drawing her a simple map of how to get to the shrine. At first glance, it didn't look like a good map. Looking at it closer, it wasn't a good map at all. It was horrible. No one would be able to understand Natsume's scribbles although he seemed quite proud of it.

"_Oi, she isn't going to understand this map…"_ Toshiro thought looking at Natsume's abstract piece of art.

"Wow, this map is actually simple and easy to understand!" Himeko exclaimed. She hated maps especially because of all the different colours and lines on it. They always seemed to confuse her but she somehow managed to understand the map Natsume drew.

"If you follow this map, you should be there in no time!"

"Thanks, I'll be off then!" She smiled before she left the dining room to collect her backpack from her room. Toshiro and Natsume watched her leave the dojo with the little good for nothing map in her hand.

"It's scary to think how good of a liar you are, Natsu." Toshiro pointed out, with a slightly frightened tone in his voice.

"I surprised myself too this time," Natsume smiled back innocently.

…

While following the map, Himeko walked through the familiar forest. She knew the dangers of the place too well and decided to stay in Zetsu form to avoid any unwanted attention. The traps that the beasts of the forests laid out were predictable this time around; from the roots that tried to grab her ankles to the snakes that were waiting around every corner just to get a bite out of her, she knew how to handle everything well.

Surprisingly, she got to the shrine in no time while following the useless map Natsume drew and stared at the place. She looked up at the gate and the stone stairs covered in autumn leaves before climbing up. The place was a mess!

"_They said they clean it every three months. This place hasn't been clean properly in years!"_

The area wasn't too large which relieved her a little. It would have taken a long time to clean if it was large. It consisted of the main worshipping hall at the rear of the shrine, a little hut to the right which she assumed was the store room a few smaller shrines on the left and three lanterns on either side of the pathway leading to the main worshipping hall.

"_Where do I even start?" _She looked around the area again and figured that the storeroom was the best place to look in for now. She needed a broom and bucket and just like she predicted, all the cleaning equipment were carelessly stuffed in there by the boys. "_I'll start at the rear of the shrine!"_

The shrine itself looked quite eery, but despite it's looks it felt peaceful. It didn't surprise her though. A shrine is said to be the House of God and although she didn't follow a certain religion or faith, she did think that there was a possibility of something great being out there. Science and evolution is one thing, but life couldn't just have popped out of no where.

"_Goddess Shinatsuhiko, huh?" _She wondered. "_Why did I even agree to come? Did I just want her powers to be passed on to me?" _She sighed looking at the main worshipping hall in front of her with a bucket of water and a washcloth in her hand before she entered. The main worshipping hall was only allowed to be entered by priests and she was aware of that fact. But the shrine has no visitors or priest to take care of anything and she didn't think that the boys from the dojo would do a good job in cleaning.

She entered the hall with caution before placing the bucket down on the floor. She got the washcloth and dipped it inside the water wringing it to force out the excess water. The hall itself was nearly empty but she didn't expect there to be much either. She started cleaning from a corner and started to work herself to the other corner. But once she got closer to the next corner, she started to sense something. She felt a warm energy coming from there, something that seemed very familiar. It felt like Nen.

It didn't feel dangerous at all so she decided to move closer the corner and felt the aura becoming stronger and stronger as she did. She looked around, but there was nothing that could actually give out the aura there. It looked like the other corner; empty. Then she got an idea.

"Gyo!"

While using Gyo, she found something that interested her. There was something engraved onto the floor with Nen. That must have been why she couldn't see it until she used Gyo. She couldn't read it as it seemed to be a language she's never seen before.

"_It's warm." _She thought as she brought her hand closer to the engraving. Once she touched it, her body started to feel weaker. She was sweating bullets and eventually she couldn't see anything in front of her. Before she knew it, she passed out, her head hitting the wood floor behind her.

…

Feeling something cold being place on her forehead, Himeko opened her eyes. She touched her forehead to find a wet cloth. The place itself felt a little familiar. She could smell the wooden walls, but that wasn't all. After taking a couple more sniffs, she concluded that it must be some kind of herb.

"You have awoken, ojou-chan."

Hearing a female voice beside her, Himeko turned her head. She took a good look at the young woman knelt down besides her. She was about average height and a thin built with pale skin and long black hair. Her clothes were plain white robes and she held mortar and pestle in her hand which she was probably using to grind the herbs Himeko could smell.

"You should rest."

Himeko took the cloth off her forehead and placed it aside before getting out of the blanket. "I'm fine, I'm not hurt anywhere."

"I was surprised when I found you in the woods. You shouldn't be wandering around here by yourself, it is very dangerous."

"I'm quite strong, so I'll be fine."

"You have a wound on your back head, so please don't overexert yourself. I'm making an ointment for you to apply."

Ignoring her words, Himeko stood up and stretched. "It will heal by tomorrow so don't worry. Besides, where am I?" Himeko continued to wander around the little hut and peaked outside the door but the place didn't seem familiar.

"Ojou-chan," The young woman called before walking up to Himeko and hitting her on the head.

"Ouch, what the hell was that for?!" Himeko winced in pain. The woman just had to hit her where she was hurt before.

"Please go back and rest properly before walking around. Your wound will become worse if we don't apply some ointment to it."

"You were the one who hit me and made it worse!"

"Ojou-chan." The woman warned in a calm tone, although it was evident that she was holding her anger back.

"Alright, I'm going back. No need to glare at me like that!" Himeko sighed in defeat before making her way back to the corner where she rested.

"Do you have a name, ojou-chan?"

"Of course I have a name!" Himeko sneered in reply, "But shouldn't you introduce yourself before asking me for my name?"

"My name?" She asked. " I am called Shinatobe."

* * *

**A/n -** Do you all smell that? That's the smell of the start of a new arc! Smells like fresh ideas and character development to me XD

So, updates on my exams. I've had 4 exams already and there are 8 more to go. I finish on the 22nd and I know I said I won't update till then. Well, I took a break from revision today and since there was nothing good on TV I decided to write but I got carried away as you can tell... Either way, if I get time I'll update before the 22nd but if not then I see you after that. It's only three weeks so you'll survive xD

**Now for the replies -**

**To Mikamizu Mouri - **I'm glad you passed all your exams :D I'll check your story out after my exams finish!

**To D -** To be honest, there wasn't much in the last chapter in my opinion since it was quite a short update. I'm glad you liked it though :) Haku and his personalities will remain a mystery for now although I will expand on it bit by bit. It's obvious that Himeko will find Hakuryuu at some point but for now, all you can do is imagine how she'll find out and how she'd feel especially after she wanted to build their clan back up with Hakuryuu as the Head. Well, hope you liked this update too ^^

**To SlighlyYandereMelissa -** Yep, I drew Himeko and coloured her in (although I did a crappy job at colouring). I've decided to make a deviant art account so I'm actually going to try and change the picture at the start of every new arc mainly because I love to draw and I won't have anything better to do over the summer. xD

**To At Night We Rise -** Thanks for the tips you gave over PM again. Also, I went back to that chapter and noticed that some of her thoughts weren't italicised so thanks for pointing that out :D


	36. Yeddo

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 36**

_Yeddo_

...

"Do you have a name?"

"Of course I have a name!" Himeko sneered in reply, "But shouldn't you introduce yourself before asking me for my name?"

"My name is Shinatobe."

"_Shinatobe sounds awfully similar to Shinatsuhiko," _Himeko thought. "_Could this woman be her?" _Himeko continued to observe Shinatobe clumsily mashing the herbs together to make the ointment to apply on Himeko's wound, spilling some of it on the floor before losing her cool and panicking. "_No way, if she is Shinatsuhiko then that would just be an insult to gods…"_

"I stated my name, so you should state yours," Shinatobe said, while wiping the spillage with her kimono's white sleeve making Himeko cringe. She was way too old to be using her sleeves as a cleaning cloth especially since it was white. That was going to be a hassle for her to clean, but it was nothing Himeko cared about. She could scrub all she wanted to get her kimono clean since Himeko would be long gone before that. But just watching Shinatobe made her a little irritated and she couldn't sit around in that tiny hut any longer.

"I am someone you don't need to know. Save yourself the hassle with whatever you are trying to make there. This wound will heal by tonight and I'm not planning on staying here until then!"

Himeko got back on her feet and started to make her way out, and Shinatobe accompanied the stubborn girl to the door and watched her open the door as it creaked open. She felt like it no use keeping her back any longer. She was going to leave no matter what she said and besides, half of the ointment she made spilled so there was hardly any ointment left. As the door opened, Shinatobe caught a peek outside and at the sight of a group of men marching towards her little hut, and she pulled Himeko back inside and shut the door fast before the men could see them.

"Quick, go and hide somewhere!" She ordered desperately in a panic. "They can't see you!"

"What are you talking about?" Himeko questioned. Shinatobe was acting strange. Surely it wasn't just because she wanted to make another batch of ointment to apply to her wound. Shinatobe was afraid of what was approaching her little hut and whatever it was, Himeko couldn't be there out in the open for them to see.

"I'll explain later. Just go and hide in that closet over there!"

Without giving Himeko another chance to speak, Shinatobe rushed Himeko towards the mahogany closet and pushed her inside before shutting it and locking it with the key hanging on the lock. She then took the key and hid it at the top of the closet before she turned around and waited anxiously for the knocks on the door.

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

As she had expected, she heard the knock echo loudly in the little hut soon after she pushed Himeko into the closet. She calmed herself down first. Now that Himeko was hidden, she had to make sure not to act suspicious. Then she slowly made her way towards the door again and opened it, letting the men in. Himeko couldn't see anything from inside the closet but she tried to listen closely. Based on the footsteps and the different rhythm and distinctive sound of each, there were four of them. However, three of the footsteps soon stopped and only one was left lingering around the little hut.

"We just came to see whether you were still staying in this little hut of yours or whether you have decided to run away." Himeko heard a deep and coarse voice from where she was sitting. It must have been the man who was still walking around the hut.

"I'm not going to run away and abandon my younger sibling!" Shinatobe's voice sounded a lot different than it did previously. Her voice was a lot softer before, but now her tone was harsh and determined. Himeko couldn't make much of the conversation so far. It was all too vague, but whatever it was it sounded shady.

"That's great to hear!" The man simpered. "That means we will be expecting you there this evening."

"_Who the fuck are these creeps? I hope this woman hasn't gotten herself involved in some fishy business."_

"I'll turn up tonight so you don't have to worry." Shinatobe was trying to keep in mind that Himeko was still in the room and tried to get rid of the men as fast as she could. "I gave you my word, so I'm asking you to trust me."

The fact that Shinatobe was starting to become a bit pushy became obvious. "One more thing, I feel like you're hiding something from me."

"_Oh no, I can't let them find the girl in the closet."_

"_That's one hell of a sharp motherfucker!" _Himeko cursed in her mind. "_He must have seen me when I opened the door."_

"It must be your imagination." Shinatobe stated, trying to waver his attention. "A rat must have gotten inside the hut."

"_So I'm a rat now?"_

"Rats do seem larger now than they were before."

"_Well excuse me for being a fat rat!"_

Himeko sat tightly in the closet, listening to every single word of their conversation. Based on the vague detail alone, she had a gut feeling that Shinatobe was in some sort of trouble and that they were making her do something against her own will by using her younger sibling. It didn't take the men long to leave the little hut though after reminding Shinatobe to appear to the said place at the said time once more. As soon as the coast was clear, Shinatobe reached for the key on top of the closet before setting Himeko. As soon as she stepped out though, she send a glare in Shinatobe's way. Being stuffed in a dusty closet was one thing, but calling her a fat rat was just plain rude. Himeko contemplated on what to do next. It was Shinatobe's own problem and Himeko didn't want to meddle with it. She had her own problems to worry about but then again, she needed to know where she was first of all and it seemed like not everyone around the place was trustworthy. For now, Shinatobe had to do.

Shinatobe was preparing to show Himeko out as the men were finally gone, but Himeko just sat back down on the floor which confused Shinatobe a little. This bipolar girl wanted to leave the hut as soon as she could a couple of minutes ago and now she's making herself comfortable to stay a little longer.

"What are looking at?" Himeko questioned, raising a brow. "Sit down!" Shinatobe obediently followed her order and sat in front of Himeko in silence, waiting for whatever Himeko wanted from her. "I'll be asking you a series of questions, and you _will_ answer them all!"

"_This girl is quite arrogant, isn't she?"_

"Firstly, is there a shrine belonging to Goddess Shinatsuhiko around here?"

Shinatobe shook her head. "This is the first time I actually heard that name."

"Now, could you tell me where I am?"

"Are you not from around here?"

"Just answer my question!"

Shinatobe frowned before answering her question. "You're in Yeddo."

"_Yeddo, huh?" _Himeko thought. The name of the location sounded very familiar, she had read about it in history books before. That's right, Yeddo doesn't exist on the map. Well, not anymore. "_As far as I remember, Yeddo was renamed Kioto quite a long time ago. So I'm in the right place, but I'm just not in the right time frame. According to her, the shrine didn't exist in this time frame but then again I don't know how old the shrine is. I need to find out how far back I am and how I'm supposed to get back."_

"Where are you from?" Shinatobe asked curiously, trying to bring Himeko back from her thoughts. So far, she didn't know one thing about Himeko and it bugged her how Himeko asked so many questions without telling her anything about herself.

"For now, I'll be asking the questions," Himeko answered. "If you answer them, I'll answer your questions."

"_What an impudent little girl!"_

"I'd like to know who those four men were. I do hope you're not involved in anything bad." Himeko could have just asked which year it was, or asked for the directions to the mountains, but the fact that those four men waltzed in on a women living by herself and told her to meet them in the evening still bugged her.

Hearing that, Shinatobe sighed. "It's not prostitution, if that is what you are thinking." The fact that she cleared it up made Himeko feel a little relieved but then again, it raised the question of what else those men wanted from her.

"Then what is it?" Himeko asked.

"The war, it's getting out of hand. They need more men up front, so they passed a law that one man from each family has to join the troops."

"_A war? There were a couple of wars involving Yeddo in the past, so it must be one of them. They are getting desperate enough to send in more men meaning things must be getting out of hand. If I'm not mistaken, the war between Yeddo and Kanto was quite bad. It lasted for around ten years and was the biggest war Yeddo was involved in. But that must mean that I'm around 500 years in the past."_

"Ojou-chan?"

"Kou. Call me Kou instead!"

"Kou?" Shinatobe questioned. "What a strange name."

"My given name is Himeko, but I prefer to go by the name Kou." She explained. "That aside, what does the war have to do with you in the first place? From what I can see, you are clearly a woman."

"You are right, but I only have a younger brother. He should be around your age, and he is clearly not ready to go into war."

That was when she understood.

"That's absurd!" Himeko interjected. "Clearly, neither you nor your brother are fit to fight in the war. This is just going to end up as a mass murder! What is the shogun* thinking?!" Shinatobe was surprised by Himeko's sudden outburst. All this time, she didn't sound like she cared even a little but now she seemed like a completely different person. Himeko noticed that she lost her temper for a moment and blew her bangs to cool down. "Sorry about that!"

"They will execute anyone that doesn't follow the law."

"_Nonsense! The bakufu** should have done better than send children and women into the war. But then again, the shogun of this period was assassinated at the end of the war. Serves him right!"_

"The troops are leaving tonight."

Himeko bit her lip while listening to Shinatobe. She clearly didn't look like a fighter, so she wouldn't last a minute in a war if she were to go. "Are you really alright with leaving? You can just try to convince them to let this slide."

Shinatobe shook her head in response, "They won't let me go that easily. They are insisting that I fight in the war along with them because I can use magic."

Himeko's attention completely turned to Shinatobe. She knew that people believed in all kinds of nonsense back in the days, but this woman believing that she can use magic just takes the cake. "Magic? You?" She asked in a mocking manner, raising a brow in amusement.

"Yes." The fact that a little girl was making fun of her just completely and utterly embarrassed her, but then again she wanted to prove that she was right. "I'll show you, just watch!"

"_Okay, let's see what kind of magic she's going to pull."_

Shinatobe left to get a glass of water and placed in in front of Himeko. "Please, taste the water."

"_This trick. I think I know where this is going…" _Nonetheless, Himeko obediently tasted the ice cold water fresh from the well before Shinatobe did just what Himeko expected. She used Ten.

"Please taste the water now." Himeko just went along with it all and tasted the water. It was a little sweeter than it was before. "You see, not many people can see what I can see so I have to do this to prove myself."

"No, I could see your aura." Himeko commented. "What you used right now, it's not magic or anything. From where I'm from, it's call Nen."

"Nen?"

Himeko put her hands together and made a small twister in her hands to prove her statement. "What you are seeing in front of you, it's called Nen. I can use it too."

"Who are you? And where are you from? How do you know about this Nen ability?" After Himeko showed her Hatsu, she was soon flooded with questions. Judging by her curiosity, Himeko could conclude one thing.

"_Nen seems to be quite rare in this time frame. That might explain why she is so surprised to see me using it." _Himeko clapped her hands together and the little twister disappeared.

"Please, I've answered all your questions. Answer mine!" Shinatobe pleaded.

"Fine! Just stop your annoying begging!" Himeko interrupted. "My full name is Himeko Inoue. Telling you where I'm from will be no use since you won't know. Let's just say I'm from a far away place and where I'm from, Nen is quite common. Quite a lot of people use it for all sorts of things. It's become part of our daily life."

"Inoue? Are you perhaps part of the Inoue clan?"

"No, I just happen to have to same surname." Himeko lied. "Anything else you need to know?"

"Yes, please teach me more about this Nen!"

Himeko sighed, knowing this question was going to be asked. "Listen up, I'm not an expert, nor am I a qualified teacher. I'm a student myself and I have only started learning Nen a couple of months ago. I won't teach you anything."

"You have more knowledge than me. It will benefit me for when I'm entering the war."

"You have a few hours until the sun sets and you have to leave then. You won't be able to master Nen by then! Forget entering the war, run away from this place and stay hidden until the war is over!"

"But my younger brother-"

"Use this time wisely to think of a way to rescue your brother then!" Himeko yelled. "Me teaching you Nen and you learning Nen for the next few hours won't do you any good. Nen has to be learnt with patience, rushing the training will do you more harm than good. Find a way to get hold of your brother in this remaining time and run away with him. You out of all people aren't fit to fight in a war, you're too soft!"

"But-"

"Good luck!" Himeko stood back up and made her way towards the door. "I have my own problems to worry about. I'm not from here, and I have to get back to where I came from before I end up in big trouble."

"Why won't you help me? Don't you at least feel sorry for me?" Shinatobe screamed in anger. "My brother has been taken away and the only way for me to get him back safely is to enter the war. Do you know how it feels like? You didn't just come out of no where, I'm sure you have a family too. Stop being so selfish and try putting yourself in my shoes for once!"

"What an annoying old hag you are! I don't have a family and the only family member I have left is god knows where doing god knows what!" Himeko snapped back. She had to chase her older brother around the world when it was meant to go the other way. He was supposed to look after her and watch over her. Why did she have to go around the world to find him? "I know how it feels to suffer the loss of family members but there is a reason why I can't help you."

"Why? Is that reason really good enough for me to lose my brother?"

"_I can't meddle with the past incase something were to change in the future." _Himeko thought to herself. She couldn't tell her. Telling Shinatobe about Nen was already bad enough, meddling with things further could change the outcome of the war. Their fate was already settled and Himeko couldn't do anything to change it. She would have had to deal with everything herself even if Himeko didn't show up. "I have my reasons. I can give you one tip though. You can increase your aura by meditating, but that's all I'm going to say."

Shinatobe didn't talk back this time and just let Himeko go. It was no use trying to convince her. She had to fight her own battle by herself and she couldn't rely on anyone anymore. Her eyes followed Himeko who didn't bother looking back. She couldn't look bad after all. She felt bad for Shinatobe but in order to not change the past, she had to leave now before she has a change of hear and decides to help her. Himeko reached for the handle and opened the door.

"I knew I smelled a rat somewhere. It turned out to be a lot bigger than I expected!"

* * *

***Shogun - **a hereditary commander-in-chief in feudal Japan appointed by the emperor. Because of the military power concentrated in his hands, the shogun was generally the real ruler of the country.

****Bakufu -** The government system of the feudal military.

So in simple english, the shogun is the big shot and the bakufu are the government officers working for the big shot.

**A/n -** Dun dun dun, cliffhanger :O Had a maths exam today, 4 more to go! Then I'll be a free bird TT_TT Well, I don't have much to say so yeah I'll move onto the reviews. Oh I did remember something! Thank you for reading and all the support! Also, sorry for the short chapter -_-'

Replies to reviews

**Queechi -** I didn't really understand the first bit of your review so I won't comment on it xD

If you are a Natsume to your younger sister, then you should feel guilty, lmao! He made her enter a forest filled with all kinds of mystical beasts with a badly drawn map that he probably won't be able to read either to clean an abandoned shrine built in the middle of no where, just because he couldn't be asked. But then again, Natsume is my favourite out of the dojo boys xD And Himeko is forever on the search for her brother. Maybe I should write a parody with her searching for Takumi, but then the readers would just get frustrated. Like Himeko seriously, keep your brothers in one place and stopped chasing them around the world xD

And I died at the 'try hard conductor' part xD If he didn't blow the whistle, she would have caught up with Hakuryuu and now she has to wait for another phone call from pedo clown to know his location. P.s Pedoclown didn't pick up cuz he was busy stalking Gon and Killua in Greed Island. Also, you don't have to review on a different chapter now I think.

**TangoUnicornA -** I'm glad you like this story and Himeko as a character, and hey, you tuned in at the correct time for an OC arc. I hope you are liking her own adventures so far ^^ Who she's going to end up with is something for you to think about. I'll give you a tip; you'll have to think about the boys' situation more than Himeko's. She doesn't really have much to worry about (well that's a lie but still). Until then, you can just cruise around on a ship and hope that I'm not going to sink that particular ship xD

**Nikaa-san -** Welcome back! It sucks that your account got hacked :( Make sure to make up a long and ridiculous password for all your social media and stuff! To be honest, every review counts in my point of view and they motivate me to do better. That aside, I'm glad that the story is getting better. It's a good indication! Don't be afraid to drop me a PM anytime, I tend to reply quite quickly since I personally feel like it's rude not to reply. But then again, that's my opinion xD


	37. Preparing for War

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 37**

_Preparing for War_

...

"I knew I smelled a rat somewhere. It turned out to be a lot bigger than I expected!"

Himeko slowly raised her head and met the eyes of the slightly obese man standing in front of her, surrounded by his three much taller and leaner men.

"Please refrain from calling me a rat, I look nothing like one. Especially not a fat rat."

Compared to Himeko's calm composure, Shinatobe was trembling in the back. The fact that Himeko refused to teach her Nen was one thing, but having caught by one of the government officials was bad enough. She was praying for Himeko not to get into anymore trouble with her attitude, but Himeko thought otherwise. They just caught a good catch to get Shinatobe to enter the war, but all she had to do was act as if she wasn't in any way associated with Shinatobe to get them both out of it. Then again, acting, pretending and lying are a transmuter's forte.

"State your business out here."

"I have no business at all. I fainted in the forest and this young woman carried me over here," Himeko explained calmly. "I was just getting ready to leave, so I would appreciate it if you moved aside."

Himeko was going to walk past the men, but she was stopped.

"Are you perhaps from the enemy's side?"

Himeko was getting a little annoyed by now. Not only did they block her way once, they blocked it again but she knew she couldn't make a scene either since the man in front of her looked like one of the 'big shots'. "I've never heard of someone dumb enough to faint on their enemies ground, and I certainly am far from being stupid."

"We overheard your conversation," he stated. "You are able to use the same abilities as Shinatobe. You will fight in the war."

"Now you are just being ridiculous," Himeko yelled back. "I'm a twelve year old girl who is not from around here. I have no reason to serve your country!" First of all, she was too young, second she was a girl and thirdly she wasn't even from Yeddo. She was absolutely right, she had absolutely no reason to serve the country and fight in the war.

While she was caught up in the conversation, two of the men moved behind her. The government official gave her a coy smile, "Why don't we just create a reason for you to fight in the war?"

Himeko's eyes followed his gaze, and she looked behind her. Shinatobe was surrounded by two of the taller men. It was obvious where this scenario was going to go next so Himeko turned her head back.

"What makes you think that I'm emotionally attached enough to help her?" She asked. "I met her less than half an hour ago, I hardly even know her!"

"Then you don't care what happens to her?"

Himeko remained silent to answer his question. Her silence could be interpreted in two ways. One: Do whatever with her, it's not like I care. Two: I don't want to answer that question untruthfully, so I'll keep quiet. The fact that there was slight hesitation in her eyes made it obvious which choice it was.

"Very well!" He knew how to get his way in this situation. He's cracked many tough nuts to get where he is today. "Take her inside and do what you want with her."

At first it sounded like a mere bluff to Himeko, but the fact that those two men obeyed him and dragged the struggling Shinatobe inside the hut after covering her mouth told her otherwise. If that were to happen, Shinatobe's whole life would have been ruined because of the fact that Himeko changed the past. It would have ended up being Himeko's fault and it wouldn't have happened if she didn't appear. In other words, she's changed the past too much to look past this too now.

"What the hell do you think you are doing with her?!" The method they used to get her to agree was utterly disgusting, but deep inside Himeko had a feeling this was going to happen eventually. "Let her go!" A signal was given to them by their boss to let Shinatobe go, but they were still waiting for Himeko's response to the whole matter. "I'm not a fighter, I can't even pick up a sword so I'll only be in the way. Why don't you go back to your shogun and figure out a way to sort this mess out without killing any more people?"

"What an arrogant child you are!" He huffed. "Do you think you are in any position to be teaching us how to rule a country?"

"Well let's see," she started off, "Six years into a war with a neighbouring country over something petty as a bit of land, despite having four allied countries you're still weak and are planning to send women and children into the war. Judging from just that, you're not very good at ruling the country, are you?"

"What an insolent child!"

He raised his hand about to slap her, but Himeko grabbed hold of it before he could even try. "Now you are raising your hand against a child? Where I'm from, that's called child abuse you know! You could get arrested for that. I'm telling you now, just get lost before you piss me off even more."

After she released his hand, he retracted it before scoffing, "No matter what you do, you'll still have to end up coming tonight. I'm talking about the both of you." He turned around and started walking towards the dense woods surrounding the hut with his men following close behind. Himeko and Shinatobe took a good while to watch them leave, making sure they left for good this time.

"Himeko…"

"What is it?" Himeko asked in an annoyed tone, startling Shinatobe. You can't exactly hold it against her, she had to go and fight in an ancient war when she had much better things to worry about like finding a way back to her own time line, cleaning the shrine, going back to the dojo, eating and falling back asleep. Yes, those were her priorities at the moment.

"You stayed for me. Thank you, I am in your debt." Shinatobe lowered her head and bowed with respect.

"Cut it out, you shouldn't lower your head to someone younger than you!"

"I'm sorry."

Himeko sighed, "Why don't you just go and apologise to your enemy during the war too? Seriously, I still can't believe that you were sent out to fight in a war and now I have to fight too!"

"Seven o'clock is the time that we are supposed to meet at," she informed Himeko. "We still have half a day left."

"Good," Himeko nodded, "I won't be able to teach you much, but it's better than nothing. Let's go and find a good spot!"

"You're going to teach me?" Shinatobe asked in a surprised tone.

"I might as well since I got myself involved in all this too now. Let's not waste any more time!"

"Right!"

Just as requested, Shinatobe led Himeko to a good training spot. It was quite a good distance away from the hut and the space was quite open with not many trees or bushes around. When they arrived, Himeko sat down on the floor and got hold of a small stick she found lying on the floor before telling Shinatobe to sit down which she obediently did.

"Before we start, you need to know what Nen is," Himeko started off. "Do you remember how or when you got your Nen?"

Shinatobe shook her head, "I was just able to do it one day and since then I've been able to use it."

"Okay, in that case I'll start with the basics." Himeko declared before she started her talk on Nen. "You see, Nen is just a fancy word for your aura. It's as simple as that, but there are four basic techniques you need to know. Ten; the ability to keep your aura pores open but prevent it from leaking out of your body. It should naturally coat your body like an invisible layer. Zetsu is shutting off these pores which hides your presence. It's extremely useful if you want to keep an eye on your enemy without being discovered, but it also leaves your body extremely vulnerable. Ren is an application of Ten where you increase the intensity of your aura still keeping it from leaking away from your body. Ten is usually used for defense, but Ren is used for offense. Finally there is Hatsu, your own personal application of nen. Understood?"

"No…"

"Okay, in that case let me demonstrate!"

Himeko wasted no time to demonstrate the first three techniques pointing out each one and it's abilities one more time. Her demonstration made it a lot clearer and Shinatobe seemed to have understood her a lot better. She seemed quite confident with it too.

"So, this is Ten!" Shinatobe followed Himeko's example and managed to achieve Ten stage with no effort at all, as if it was second nature to her. Himeko was impressed. It took her a whole day to keep her aura from leaking out but Shinatobe made it seem like child's play. "Then comes Zetsu!" Shinatobe sealed off her aura pores and Himeko watched in awe as her presence just vanished. "Then you go back to Ten and intensify your aura to get Ren." In a flash, the intensity of her aura triples, no quadrupled.

_"She got them all right in one go. Pisses me off for some reason…"_

"So what about Hatsu?" Shinatobe asked with curiosity.

Himeko shook her head in response, "You need to master the first three in order to create your own Hatsu."

"Have you mastered Hatsu?"

"I've started to create my own Hatsu but I'm still in the process of it."

"Not even you've done it yet?"

"No, it's not as simple as the other two," Himeko explained. "You see, your Hatsu should reflect your personality. A good Hatsu is unique and should be personal to the individual. You have to give it quite a lot of thought. You're a transmuter, so you have quite a lot of options."

"Transmuter?"

"Yes, it's one of the Nen types," she replied. "You were able to change the quality of the water earlier, that suggested that you are a transmuter. As a transmuter you can mimic the quality of anything you want with your Nen." Himeko picked up her stick again and drew a hexagon to explain the other nen types. Shinatobe listened with fascination as she wasn't aware of humans possessing such abilities herself.

"What about you?"

"I'm a transmuter too," Himeko answered.

"Can you show me your Hatsu then?" She asked with excitement, but Himeko's expression just fell. She didn't seem as confident with Hatsu as she was with the other techniques. "It doesn't matter if you didn't master your Hatsu yet. You said you started a while ago, so I'll keep it in mind!"

Himeko held her hand out and a small gust of wind escaped, "That's my Hatsu. It's wind!" Shinatobe was in deep thoughts after seeing her Hatsu which Himeko found quite nerve wracking. Was she going to say something bad about her Hatsu? "Is something wrong?"

"No it's just that I think I can do that too!"

"You can?"

Shinatobe did the same as Himeko and held her hand out. Just like before, a small gust of wind escaped, leaving Himeko awestruck once again. "I was able to do that for quite a while now. They don't call me Heaven's maiden for nothing."

_"Cheesy nickname aside, this woman doesn't look like it but she is a genius. A natural!"_ Himeko thought. _"She knew Nen all along, didn't have anyone teach her or help her discover it."_

"Did I do something wrong?" Shinatobe asked with worry, seeing Himeko in deep thoughts.

"No, not at all!" Himeko shook her head. "Say, when were you first able to use Nen?"

"I think I was a little older than you."

_"She must be in her early twenties, so it's been around eight or nine years. It makes sense for her to be able to control it this much after such a long time, but the fact that she was able to learn that all by herself is amazing. I think they are called Geniuses according to Haruko."_ She couldn't help it but Himeko felt just a little envious at that point. The ability to learn Nen and develop your own Hatsu like this without guidance is a skill that only one in a million or so would possess. She's been able to follow and do everything Himeko's trained for over nearly a year now, but it made her smile at the same time. "Interesting, I'll look forward to training with you old hag!"

"It's aneue* to you!"

"You don't have time to be picky about what I call you," Himeko reminded her. "Listen up, you're very good although it pisses me off how good you are. If we work for a couple of hours, both of us would be able to develop our Hatsu just a bit by this evening. We've got to focus!"

"Yes!"

Both Shinatobe and Himeko spent the next couple of hours trying to develop their Hatsu individually. They could influence each other if they were to train together which wasn't good at all. Although Shinatobe just learnt about Nen, Himeko was confident in her abilities. She was a natural and it wouldn't take her long to pick things up. Even if she didn't get far today, Shinatobe seemed like the type to learn while fighting in battle. She hated to admit it, but ability wise Shinatobe was quite a lot better than her but it was just her attitude that annoyed Himeko. Shinatobe seemed almost too trusting, she reminded her of a _certain someone_ from back home. Gon had always annoyed her with his trusting and goody two shoes attitude, but she couldn't help but admit that it was his charm at the same time. Shinatobe claimed to have found Himeko lying around in the forest, took her home and treated her wounds not knowing her background or anything. The fact that she was strong was good, but she worried that Shinatobe's attitude could get her into trouble.

That aside, Himeko decided to focus solely on her own training. She hated losing, and she didn't want to be weaker than someone who had believed that Nen was magic for nearly a decade. Although she wasn't worried about Shinatobe's abilities, she doubted her own. She would have felt a lot more comfortable with someone around to teach her Nen and guide her down the correct path to developing a good Hatsu. Toshiro, Haruko even Natsume, she didn't mind any of them to be there right now and if there was someone to help her, it would certainly boost her confidence by quite a lot.

Himeko focused her aura in her hands, creating a gust of wind spinning around in her palm. The more it spun, the more wind from the surrounding it got and that caused it to grow in size at a steady pace. She had thought this through for quite a few days, but this was the first time she tried it out.

_"Okay, here it goes!"_ She threw the disc of spinning wind in her palm in the direction of some nearby trees at a slight angle and watched it head towards a tree increasing in size the more it spun. The disc flew at the tree, cutting it in half horizontally in the process. _"It worked!"_

For the first time her trying it out, it worked pretty well. But then again, she thought about it for quite some time so she wasn't surprised. However, she knew that she could do much better than that and decided to try again and again from different angles, trying to see whether it actually made a difference of not. As expected, the disc moved depending on how hard she threw it and also according to the angle she threw it in. She couldn't control the disc after throwing it since only Enhancers could do that but giving it a second thought, she did find a way to do it. A boomerang comes back after it's thrown which made her wonder whether she could do the same if she threw it at the right angle. It could take her days, weeks even months to try out all the possible angles since even 0.5 degrees could affect the outcome. There was no short cut around it, she had to try it the hard way in order to get what she wanted and there was no better time to start than right there and then.

Unlike Shinatobe, Himeko didn't get much done during her training. She tried her attack over and over again only to discover another flaw in it. The bigger it got, the more it can destroy but if it were to come back towards her then there might be a chance that she couldn't stop it herself with just her bare hands. Not just that, she also discovered that her ability is heavily dependant on it's surroundings. The windier it is, the stronger her attack will be but this wouldn't be the case if she was indoors, or maybe in a closed space. If that were the case then there had to be a limit to how much she could use and she had to find out her limit before fighting actual battles. Even if she were to use her Hatsu in a windy place, there had to be a limit too. At the end of the day, more questions were created than answered bringing her back to square one. She felt like she's done a lot since she felt exhausted after throwing her wind discs multiple times, but she didn't feel any improvement and neither did she feel satisfied. In order for her to be satisfied, it had to be perfect!

Shinatobe on the other hand trained all her basics and started to properly work on her Hatsu. She's started to develop it a few years ago so although she didn't know exactly what to do, she at least knew how to control her Hatsu. Himeko went to check up on her since she needed time for her Nen to charge up again and saw her switching between Ten, Zetsu and Ren.

"A word of advice from me. Don't overuse your Hatsu in battle!" Himeko warned her. "You have to know how to fight without it too for the period of time when your Hatsu has to recharge."

"You mean hand to hand fighting?"

"Precisely. Have you ever held a weapon before?"

"No, I never needed to fight."

Himeko didn't know whether she should shout at Shinatobe for being close to useless or whether she should just keep face palming. "So you've never held a sword before, and neither have you ever been in a fight?"

"That's right."

"What do you mean by _'that's right'_?! That's definitely _not_ right. It is _far_ from right! Going into war without knowing how to fight is just like jumping into the sea without knowing how to swim. You just don't do it!" Himeko ranted. "Now, do I slap you for being like this or do I slap myself for still sticking around here?"

"Don't slap yourself!"

"You're right! I'll just go and hit my head against one of those trees over there. That should do a lot more damage!"

"Then just teach me how to fight."

"Listen up old hag, just because you are a little talented when it comes to Nen doesn't mean that you gifted in everything. There is a difference between memorising and actually knowing something. Just because you know a lot doesn't mean you'll do well in an exam, you'll have to know how to apply that knowledge in order to pass."

"Aneue*! Show your elders some respect, you conceited child."

"I am not conceited!" Himeko protested. "I am far from conceited."

"That's something you'd say if you are conceited."

"Okay, fine! I am conceited, happy?" she asked. "But that doesn't change the fact that you are pretty much useless at fighting. We don't have the time or energy to do any training today so you'll just have to learn as you fight. Ren and Ten is key, so if you are able to perfect that you should be fine for now."

Now that Himeko pointed it out, Shinatobe started to worry more. She sure had a point, just because she was good at using Nen didn't mean that she'd be a good at fighting. She had no choice but to go through with it as there was no way out for her now, but when she remembered hearing about hundreds of soldiers dying in battle and most of the soldiers that returned coming back home without arms and legs frightened her.

"Himeko, do you mind if we stopped somewhere before going to the meet up place?"

...

"Oba-san?" Shinatobe called as she entered the little wooden shop. The inside was dark, with only a few candles illuminating the place. There were a few old books in the book shelves on the side and a table right at the end of the room. Himeko looked around as she followed Shinatobe inside, "Oba-san, are you here?"

"Shinatobe, is that you my child?"

"Yes, I've brought along a friend of mine." The girls walked up to the table where an old lady was sitting on the other side, observing Himeko. She was quite short, with a slight tan. She had wrinkles on her face and her grey hair was tied up in a neat bun on the top of her head. "Can you read our palms?"

_"Palm reading?"_ Himeko thought as she tilted her head. _"Was this the important thing she wanted to get done?"_

"Please take a seat."

Although Shinatobe sat down right away, Himeko still wasn't too into the idea of getting your future told by just your palms. She was 500 years in the past and she didn't blame Shinatobe for having all these weird superstitions, but she wasn't really a fan of the idea of getting your future told by someone looking at your palm.

"You have decided to go to the war, haven't you my child?" She asked Shinatobe.

"Yes, it is the only way for them to release my brother," Shinatobe stated. "Will I be okay in the war?"

"You shouldn't worry about the war. You will gradually rise in status in the military earning the respects of the higher ups. I guarantee you a safe return not too soon after you join."

Shinatobe was reliefed, _"So I'm not going to die!"_

"But don't let people take advantage of your kindness, Shinatobe." The elder warned.

"I don't understand."

"I cannot tell you more."

"I understand."

The elder's gaze shifted over to Himeko who was sitting besides Shinatobe. She looked her straight into her eyes, before she started to speak. "There is a lot of sadness hidden within your eyes. I can see a lot of tears held back, masked behind your deep blue eyes. You are not speaking, yet your eyes are telling me your story."

Before she could reveal Himeko's past, Himeko showed her palm. "I already know my past, I came to know my future."

The elder looked down on her palm, analysing the lines on it. "If you keep going like this, you won't have a future."

"No future? Am I going to die?"

"Your life could potentially be at risk if you do not take care of yourself. You have the potential to live a very long life if you are careful, but there is also a small chance of you dying at a your current age if you are being careless."

"It doesn't have anything to do with the war, does it?" Shinatobe interrupted with worry. The last thing she wanted is to return safely from the war without Himeko.

"Not at all. This child isn't from here, she does not belong here. She will return safely to her home once she is done."

In one way, it relieved Himeko, but it still left questions unanswered. "Then?" Himeko asked in confusion.

"You aren't doing anything for yourself, my child. You are pleasing yourself by aiding those around you with their futures, but if you keep going like this you will end up with nothing. You will live a regretful future, envious of those around you who are living with success."

"Is that true Himeko?" Shinatobe questioned. The person the elder described seemed like the opposite of Himeko who seemed to be doing quite a lot just for herself. The thought of her helping others instead of herself seemed a little funny to her.

"No, not at all." Himeko shook her head. "Whether or not I help people isn't an issue in my opinion. It's my choice and I don't see how I'll regret it, if anything it just helps me mature and grow as a person."

"That I know," the elder smiled. "You might seem like a conceited child at first, but you are quite shy inside. I can't blame you for something your parents have taught you."

_"I am not conceited..."_ Himeko pouted at the thought of being called conceited for the second time in a day. "Is there anything else I need to know?"

"You are certainly still to young to hear this, but there is also a love fortune here."

Before Himeko could respond, Shinatobe beat her to it. "Love? Tell us more oba-san!"

The elder looked at Himeko, seeking permission to say this out loud. "I guess it won't hurt," she shrugged.

"There are quite a lot of significant men in your life at the moment," she started off. "As for now, no one is thinking of you as their significant other. But when the time comes, you will be torn between two men. You will shed tears when you have to pick one and let go of the other."

The elder's tone was serious, but hearing this Himeko couldn't help but burst out into laughter. "Torn between two men? Don't make me laugh!"

"Himeko, lower your tone. It's rude talking to the elder like this," Shinatobe whispered over, trying to stop Himeko from laughing or insulting the elder's fortune any further.

"What else am I supposed to do? The thought of me stuck between two guys is just too funny. Must mean that I'll grow up to become quite hot!" Himeko snickered at the thought before she calmed down. "But in all honesty, I can't picture myself crying over a guy and neither can I picture myself picking one and abandoning another. I'm not the type to prioritise one friend over another, and I don't think I'll grow up to become such a person either."

"Time will only change you as a person. You have grown significantly in a short period and you will continue to mature in the future. You are smiling brightly in your future, but that doesn't mean that you won't shed a tear or two."

After a short silence, Himeko sighed and stood back up. "Thanks for the fortune, but I don't really believe in that stuff. I'll wait for you outside Shinatobe."

The elder watched the little girl walk out of the shop before turning to Shinatobe who apologised on Himeko's behalf. "I'm sorry for her rudeness."

"You don't need to be sorry, whether someone believes in my fortunes or not is their choice," The elder smiled, "I'd rather have someone bluntly telling me that than walking out leaving me with a lie. That aside, is there something else bothering you?"

Shinatobe started fiddling with her fingers, "I was wondering about my own love fortune."

The elder always thought of Shinatobe as a woman who didn't care about love so she was slightly taken back by her request. However, it did make her laugh wholeheartedly. "A very kind man will be falling in love with you soon, and he will make sure of your safety, looking out for you from afar. However, I do not see anything beyond that."

"I see." The fact that there was a little romance in her life made her happy, but the fact that it wouldn't progress past that upset her a little. She had dreams of getting married and starting a family of her own just like any other woman, but since her parents left her and her younger brother alone she had always worried whether that would come true. "Thank you, I shall be going now."

After thanking the elder once more, Shinatobe stood up from her seat and started heading towards the door.

"Shinatobe," the elder stopped her.

Shinatobe turned around, "Yes?"

"Be careful!"

"Yes, I will."

* * *

**Omake : Life with Boys Part 1 - Special Training**

It was 10 AM at the Dojo in Kioto. Since Sensei was gone for a day, the boys just decided to take their day off as there was no one at the dojo to 'make' them train. Although Sensei was gone, he strictly told the trio of boys to take care of their own student and train her as she didn't have an excuse to slack off in the presence of her own teachers.

Let's quickly take a look at Himeko's timetable inside her room:

**8AM - 11AM -** _Sleep while Toshi isn't looking + boss Toshi around (Toshiro's Nen training)._

**11AM - 1PM -** _Sleep some more while Haru isn't looking + ask Haru for expensive things which he will buy you (Haruko's Control training)_

**3PM - 6PM -** _Living hell! Don't sleep unless you want Psycho McPsychoson to kill you! (Natsume's Hand to hand combat training)_

However, the fact that Toshiro returned so early from training all by himself when he was still supposed to train her made the other two wonder a little. They watched him walk into their room with casualty and pick up the Shounen Jump magazine that Natsume has lent him. After all, what better day to laze around than a day when Sensei was not around.

"Toshi, aren't you supposed to train Kou right now?" Haruko broke the silence.

Toshiro looked up from his magazine for a moment and turned back to it, "I am training her. I told her to train by herself and I'll be checking up on her in an hour or so."

"You left her all alone in the mountains?" Natsume raised a brow. But then again, he wasn't surprised.

Toshiro turned the page as he continued to read, "Yeah, what's the big deal? She travels around the world by herself so staying alone in the mountains for an hour won't be that hard for her."

_"He does have a point!" _The other two thought to themselves. With that out of their minds, Haruko continued to do some work he had to submit on his laptop while Natsume returned to his manga.

Meanwhile on the mountains.

"Hello?" Himeko's voice echoed. "Toshi, are you there? Get me off this tree, I can't get down by myself!"

But only the ravens crowed back in reply.

"I'm sorry for calling you dodo-head! That was the nicest insult I could think of, just come back and get me off here!"

* * *

***Aneue - **polite term for older sister. Same thing as onee-san, but the term Aneue was used more commonly back in the days.

**A/n -** One more exam left on monday and then I'm done! I also decided to change the dp for this arc :D I might change it for every arc since I like drawing. But Himeko turned out looking so pissed in the picture xD she looks like a different person in a ponytail too!

Well, I do have a few questions for you all this time around :

1\. What do you think of this arc so far? Is it interesting? Boring? I'd love to know as it serves as feedback for me and guides me to write better arcs and stuff.

2\. What are your thoughts about the elder's fortunes? Believable or complete bullshit?

3\. How will the war work out?

4\. After reading the omake, would you willingly live in the dojo? (cuz in all honesty I wouldn't!) I wrote it just for fun since I didn't write much on how life at the dojo is and I'm planning to make a few more short omakes in the next few chapters so keep your eyes peeled for those :D

Now replies to the reviews

**To TangoUnicornA -** I tend to reply to all my reviews now since talking is fun and I have a habit of not being able to shut up. I drive my brothers insane sometimes xD

I'm glad you like the war arc so far. I thought it would be interesting to stick Kou into a war since she doesn't fight a lot unlike the canon characters. It's a shounen anime/manga, and the fact that I added a girl in it doesn't change it. She has to be able to fight and be able to not rely on anyone else, so I threw in this arc. You can just ship her with whoever you want until she just ends up with someone, but I am curious on who you are shipping her with. Most of the readers ship her with Killua but I can't help but feel sorry for Kurapika... Well, I hope you liked the update :D

**To Queechi -** Your directions are on point man, I wish I had your skills xD

I'd rather have a brother like Natsume than have two Toshiros as brothers. At least Toshiro is nice once in a while, but they are far from that TT_TT But then again, my second brother is going to move out for university too after the summer so the whole house will finally be mine! (and my parents' of course)

You : 'Once you finish this fic'

Me : Lol, I wonder when that's going to happen

**To Nikaa-san - **Yeah, that chapter was actually shorter than my usual chapters, so I felt a little bad for releasing it :/

Well, I'll let you be confused until the time comes. Feel free to PM me whenever you want, and good luck with your exam. I only have one left but that's a stats exam. Stats is basically nonsense in my eyes!

...

That's all from me for today. Thanks for all the reviews, faves and follows. They honestly mean a lot to me since it tells me that people are actually enjoying what I write. Have a nice day or night. Peace!


	38. The Troops

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 38**

_The Troops_

_..._

"Sorry, I took longer than expected."

After hearing her love fortune from the old fortune teller, Shinatobe walked back outside to meet up with Himeko who she expected to make a remark about how she took so long to come outside. However Himeko's attention was fixed on something going on in front of her, leading Shinatobe to check what's going on. Men and boys were all heading in the same direction, heads lowered and all hopes given up on returning home alive.

Scanning through the crowd, the girls noticed men from all ages. There were men in their early fifties and some even in their early teens. They all left home, having to represent their families in the war. At one point, Himeko's eyes met those of a young boy who seemed like he was her age, maybe even younger than her. All he could do was give her a faint smile and keep walking, knowing that there was no one in this country to help them. Himeko gulped thinking about all the possible things that boy could go through in the war. Dying without living his life to it's fullest; not just him but there were other children sent out too. What the shogun and bafuku were thinking, sending them into war and just throwing away their young lives, that's what she wondered. They had the whole military in their palm and were able to move them around like pieces on the chessboard, but for what purpose? To protect the country. But what they were doing right now seemed far from it.

Now that she had to stay for Shinatobe's and her brother's sake, she wanted to do something about it but she knew she couldn't. She didn't have the authority, neither did she have the power to do it. All she could do was watch. She felt helpless. She felt weak.

"We should get going too…"

Himeko walked off, expecting Shinatobe to follow close behind her. Himeko was almost too quiet, it made Shinatobe feel uneasy. From the moment she met Himeko, Himeko had been upbeat, occasionally insulting Shinatobe and praising herself, but the tense air got to her now. Fortune teller aside, Himeko knew that she won't die in the war. She knew Nen; an ability that was rare in Yeddo at that time. Only Geniuses like Shinatobe were able to develop it without guidance. But that didn't mean that she wanted to fight in the war, and see these people around her die. She knew that she wouldn't be able to protect everyone fighting in the war either, a single troop consisted of thousands of soldiers. Although she couldn't save all the innocent people that were sent out to war, she wanted to at least protect Shinatobe.

Unlike Himeko, Shinatobe believed in the fortune teller's words. She guaranteed that both Himeko and Shinatobe were to return safely, and whether it's because of her naive nature, or her believe in such superstitions, she felt confident about their return. She wanted to tell Himeko to cheer up and think positively, but she chose not to. She knew Himeko didn't believe in anything the fortune teller had told them and just because of that, she chose to respect her beliefs and keep quiet.

"_Only God knows who that child is…"_

As the sun started to set, more and more people started to gather up at the meeting spot. Shinatobe and Himeko were the only women there, which didn't surprise Himeko. The only reason why they were there was because people knew of Shinatobe's nen ability. She scanned through the crowd, meeting her eyes with the government officer she met earlier on the day, who just gave her a smug smile. He knew that they would both appear even after the fuss they made earlier. After noticing Himeko's clenched fist, Shinatobe looked over and met the eyes of the government officer too.

"Don't bother looking that way," Himeko informed her. "He just wants to see us riled up."

"Mmh." Shinatobe nodded, before she broke off eye contact and looked over somewhere else. The crowd was waiting for a signal from the higher ups, but until then they remained still.

"Aneue!" Suddenly, Shinatobe heard the voice of a young boy running up to her before she turned around and was greeted with a hug. It was a much younger boy, maybe a few years older than Himeko with short black hair, and hazel eyes.

"_Shinichi…" _Shinatobe stared at the boy in disbelief. She took a moment to look the boy up and down, making sure he wasn't hurt before she embraced him. "Shinichi, you're not hurt!"

Himeko watched the siblings reunite and shed tears in front of her, feeling both ecstatic but also a little envious. She had waited so long to meet her own brother the same way, reunited by a big hug, her brother making sure that she isn't hurt and comforting her, telling her that everything would be alright now that he's here. She dreamt big, but when she last saw her brother in her hometown, it seemed like Hakuryuu didn't even acknowledge his little sister's presence. Maybe he didn't want to see her as much as she wanted to see him, or maybe she just grew and changed so much over the years that he didn't recognise her.

"This is Himeko," Shinatobe introduced, bringing Himeko a little forward after she noticed that she had increased the distance between them.

"Good day, I'm Shinichi." He bowed. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too," Himeko bowed back.

"Himeko is going into the war with me, and she started to teach me how to fight."

"That's amazing, if you have been chosen to fight then you must be really strong although you're so small."

"Now, now, it's rude to judge people by their appearances. Himeko might look small, but might be the strongest person I've ever seen."

"You haven't even seen that many people, aneue!" Shinichi pointed out.

"Ah!"

"Did you seriously just realise that?"

The longer she stood there, the more Himeko started to feel like a third wheel. She was truly happy for them to have finally met up again, but she noticed that Shinatobe seemed a lot happier now than she was since morning.

"I'm going to look around the place a little," Himeko gave the siblings a faint smile, before she was about to walk off. Before she could do so, Shinatobe firmly grabbed hold of her shoulder.

"You're going to get yourself lost in this crowd!" She said. "Stay here, it's nearly seven o'clock."

Himeko turned back around, facing the siblings before Shinatobe released her grip. She listened to the siblings catch up with each other. Apparently, Shinichi was taken away for nearly one and a half weeks after Shinatobe refused to get involved in the war. She was blackmailed using her brother and in the end, she had no choice but to attend. They didn't torture him or anything and provided him with meals as they knew that Shinatobe would join the war for him.

Once it was seven o'clock, a couple of men wearing expensive looking armours lined up at the front.

"You should get going Shinichi, stay safe while I'm gone."

"You too. Take care, aneue and come back safely." Shinichi smiled, before turning to Himeko. "You too Himeko, come back safely and please take care of my good for nothing sister."

"Sure, I'll do that!" Himeko smiled back.

Things calmed down, and the men at the front of the crowd started to call out names, separating the men into their respective troops. One by one, each man left and lined up behind their troop leader. However, as time passed and the size of the crowd decreased, Himeko and Shinatobe were still not called. Some even wondered why two women were amongst the men in the first place.

"Shinatobe, you're in Miyamoto-dono's troop."

Shinatobe gave Himeko a worried look, before she slowly made her way to her troop. In the end, Himeko was left all by herself and saw the government officer from earlier speak to one of the troop leaders.

"Little girl, you are joining Ito-dono's troop."

The fact that Shinatobe was alone in her troop worried her a little, nonetheless Himeko made her way towards her troop hearing a couple of whispers on the way there.

"Ito-dono and Miyamoto-dono's troops usually take the front line." One of the men told his neighbour. "Wouldn't it be reckless sending a woman and a child to the front lines?"

"It doesn't matter," his neighbour replied. "At least it's not us. Our troops are far away from the front line."

Hearing this, she couldn't help but feel angry. All this time, Himeko sympathised with them, and pitied them for being sent out to war but now she's heard it with her own ears. They didn't care about her wellbeing, just their own. Whether she died in battle didn't matter to them, all they wanted was to return home safely.

Ito still seemed sceptical of Himeko's abilities. He knew of Shinatobe's abilities as she was known by many in the village, but no one knew about Himeko's abilities. Not only that, she was also just a child. He wasn't the only one though. Ito's and Miyamoto's troop consisted of the strongest men in the village, so the fact that they were stuck with girls confused them. Some even felt offended to be stuck in the same troop as Himeko.

"We'll be moving out now," Ito announced. His troops started marching off one by one, in a single file while the other troops remained behind waiting for their turn. Once the man in front of her started to march off, Himeko knew that it was finally time for her to leave too. She spared Shinatobe who was a couple of meters away a glance before she followed the men in her troop.

…

"These are your uniforms. You'll be expected to wear these and take care of your own. You will have to wash your own and make sure it doesn't get damaged during battles." Ito explained once they got to their base. "You will also be given swords to fight with. If you do not know how to use one, then learn!"

A man came and passed out the uniforms, and once he got to Himeko he purposely ignored her and walked past.

"I'm standing here too!" Himeko pointed out, to which the man just turned around and snickered.

"Sorry, I didn't see you there." He said before he passed her a uniform that was obviously too big for her. "Watch out, someone might step on you if you don't pay attention to where you are going."

Himeko didn't pay any attention to him. "_Don't bother with them, they aren't worth your time." _she kept telling herself. She looked around and noticed that most men started changing although she was still inside with them, refusing to acknowledge her presence there. They didn't seem to care, but she certainly did. She managed to find a way out of the tent and looked around. There were many other tents around, all belonging to their troops, but she was looking for one tent in particular. She had to have a word with their troop leader; Ito.

"Excuse me, I'm coming in." She said before she entered the slightly smaller tent.

Ito looked up from the table set up, "Yes, can I help you?"

"The uniform is too big for me, and I also need a place to change as the tents are all occupied with men."

Ito set his glass of water aside and sighed in annoyance, "This is why I didn't want a girl to join my troop. All they do is complain about everything." He muttered quietly, but loud enough for Himeko to hear.

"I'm not asking for much, you were the ones that recruited me so you'll have to provide me with the necessary things."

"Little girl, I have better things to do than deal with your problems." He said. "They should have made uniforms for boys your age so go and ask for them. And if you can't change inside the tents, then go and change outside behind the bushes. It's dark so no one will see."

Himeko scoffed at his response. "Behind the bushes? Is that all the respect you have for your subordinates?" Ito did not respond to her question, so Himeko decided to leave. "By the way, the name is Himeko. I would at least expect you to address me properly."

There wasn't much left for her to do. All she did was go up to one of the men that was sorting out the uniforms and ask for a smaller one. She couldn't do much about the tent situation either. She walked quite a far distance away from their base and started to change behind the bushes after making sure that no one was around. Then she returned back to the tent she was assigned to.

"These are your swords, don't lose them!"

Himeko was handed two katanas, and she unsheathed them to see whether they were undamaged. Seeing how focused she was, some of the men around her just mocked her once again.

"Does she even know how to hold a sword."

"Isn't that a bit too heavy for you?"

"Maybe you should just go home and leave the fighting to us."

These were all words thrown at her, but she chose to ignore them all. Instead, she picked up her swords and walked out of the tent. She had all her equipment, so she was no longer required to stay inside. All they were going to do was eat and then sleep, so Himeko got her food and walked far away from the base for some peace and quiet. Since both Ito's and Miyamoto's troops took the front line, Miyamoto's base wasn't too far from Ito's. It didn't take Himeko long to walk there as she knew that Shinatobe was probably stuck in the same situation as her.

Just as she expected, Shinatobe sat alone in the newcomers tent while everyone else was eating. Himeko quietly made her way inside, earning stares from the troop members inside and sat next to her.

"Why aren't you eating?" Himeko asked.

Shinatobe pointed at one of the younger men lying down on the other side of the tent. "We were short on food, so I gave it to him. He seemed quite pale and missing one meal wouldn't hurt."

Himeko handed over her bowl. "Have half of it and I'll have the other half. You're not in the position to do charity here, especially not after we are treated like complete outcasts."

"But aren't you just doing the same thing?" Shinatobe questioned.

Himeko raised her voice a little, "Just take it!"

Shinatobe smiled and accepted the bowl. "Why aren't you in your tent?"

"Why? Want me to go back?"

"No, not at all."

"I can't stand sharing a tent with those pigs, so I came outside. I'm spending the night outside anyway."

Shinatobe passed the half empty bowl back to Himeko, "You should eat the rest."

Himeko ate in silence, looking around Shinatobe's tent. The men all seemed pretty confident with themselves and fell asleep as soon as they finished eating. She didn't expect any more from them anyway, and her tent would probably look the same right now.

"Can I ask you something Himeko?"

"What is it?"

"Where exactly are you from?"

"I told you before, you won't know where it is even if I told you."

"Why did you come to Yeddo then?"

"I'd like to know that myself."

"Maybe, you are a messenger God sent down to me."

Himeko turned her head around and looked at Shinatobe in disbelief, "And you are in your twenties?"

"That's right, I'm nearly twenty two."

"Couldn't tell, you still talk like a five year old."

"That's not true, I act my age!" She protested.

Himeko set her empty bowl aside and stood back up, "That's nice. I'm going out for a walk."

"You are leaving already?" Shinatobe asked. "Aren't you going to stay a little longer?"

"No, I'd rather get some fresh air before sleeping."

"Well, in that case don't stay out too late."

Himeko reassured Shinatobe with a nod before she headed outside. She didn't want to head back to her own troop's base, so she headed towards an empty spot in the distance near the woods.

_"I can't slack off with training,"_ she thought to herself. To be honest, Himeko never really saw a point in the endless training she did. She didn't know why she trained so desperately. Before she Hunter exams, she was satisfied with her own strength and didn't feel the need to become stronger than she already was. She didn't see the point in fighting either, which is why she tried to avoid getting into physical fights wherever she went. She only fought if she was required to do so.

But the Hunter exams are long gone. It's been nearly a year to be exact. As guilty as it makes her feel, she initially stuck with Gon and the others so she could get hold of a license more easily. After all, working in a group increases the odds of passing but before she realised, she became quite close to them despite her initial opinions of each one of them. Along with that, she felt that she had somehow become a lot more dependant on people now. She saw how strong and talented they all were; Gon snatching Hisoka's batch during the Hunter's exam; Killua opening the third Testing gate with ease while she could only open the second one despite all that intense training; Kurapika singlehandedly beating one of the Phantom Troupe members. In her life she had only felt inferior to her brother, but now that she's met so many other amazing people, she couldn't help but feel weak watching them grow stronger.

_"Knowing Gon and Killua, they are probably training their Hatsu. Leorio must have started training too since his entrance exams are over. I just hope Kurapika is doing fine..."_ she found herself staring at the grass swaying in the wind. _"I've got no time to be worrying about Kurapika, I need to get a move on!"_

After finding a good spot, she settled down to start training. With a war going on, she doesn't have the luxury to ask for time to train so it was up to her to sacrifice sleeping time to do so.

_"I'll start practicing my Ten first followed by Ren. I couldn't use my technique over a certain number of times earlier because my Ren was still too weak. Maybe an hour or two should be good enough, then I'll continue training my Hatsu."_

For the first time in her life, Himeko decided to follow Toshiro's training method. They say that you'll only want something when you can't have it. Right now, all she wanted was a teacher to help her train. Whether it was bad tempered Toshiro, overly attached Haruko or sadistic Natsume, she didn't care.

Starting off with meditation, she trained her Ten ensuring that none of her Nen was leaking away from her body. After meditating for around half an hour, she intensified her aura so it doubled. Once she stabilised her Ren, she kept going, doubling it again and once again until she reached her limit.

Eventually she stopped practicing her basics and moved on to Hatsu to continue where she left off earlier on the day. She started off by creating the circular disks before she found a spot to throw them. She watched the disk hit some trees, cutting them in half before curving away. She tried changing the angle, and made yet another one before throwing it in the same direction. Each time, she made a new disk and threw it at a different angle, watching it cut the trees that came in its way in half and curving away.

At one point, she noticed that she started to feel exhausted, "I threw thirteen so far, but it still doesn't feel like enough." She could feel the warm sweat drip down her cheeck from her forehead, eventually reaching her chin. It was hot and she felt refreshed whenever the breeze hit her sweaty face, cooling her down. "I should try it one more time. At least another time before I take a break!"

She brought her right leg back to support her body before she created another disk and threw it. This time, the disk took much longer to make as she was almost at her limit. As per usual, she watched the disk head towards the woods and wipe away all the trees coming in its way before it curved at an angle and this time, headed back towards her. Taken back by it, she panicked not knowing what to do. However, the more the disk spun, the bigger it became and out of instinct she counteracted the disk with her wind blast destroying the disk.

She took a moment to stare into space while panting, _"I did it..."_ Her lips curved upwards and she used some of her remaining energy to jump up and down to celebrate. "I did it! Now I just have to keep practicing."

Although it took her around two hours to practice, she felt like it was worth it. She finally got somewhere after a days worth of training and out of dumb luck, she also figured out a way to counteract the disk.

_"I hope I can get back home soon. If I knew how I got here, I'll be able to get back but I don't even know that,"_ she sighed sitting back down on the grass.

"Himeko, what are you still doing here? It's really late." Himeko looked back up, hearing Shinatobe's voice coming her way. She looked around at the fallen trees in the distance, "Did you train all this time?"

"Yeah, I don't want to fall behind with training."

Shinatobe sat down on the grass beside Himeko, "Is it rude for me to ask why you are so set on becoming stronger?"

"It's not rude at all," Himeko answered. "In fact, sometimes I don't know myself. I tend to ask myself why I keep training although I know I'm stronger than the average person, but then I look at my friends back home and just continue to train. I don't have a legit reason, and you could call me a sore loser but I hate losing. The reason why I want to become stronger is because I don't want to be weaker than everyone else."

"Isn't there anyone you want to protect?"

"Sadly, all the people I want to protect are stronger than me. I have to protect myself first in that case."

"That's not true, the fortune teller told us otherwise" Shinatobe interrupted. "She said that the two of us will come back alive from the war and that you will return safely to where you came from."

Hearing this, Himeko bit her lip. "Unfortunately, miracles don't just fall from the sky. I despise anyone who thinks that way, I can't help but feel angered by it." Shinatobe swallowed her words back. "All my life, I've worked so hard only to be compared to someone much more capable than me. I worked so hard, yet I still feel like a nobody and you expect something good to happen just by us sitting down and waiting for it to happen?"

"Honestly, that's not what I mea-"

"I worked hard fulfilling my clan's expectations, but in the end I just lost my clan. I gave my best, running away from the research lab I was held at, only to be classed as an incomplete test subject. I worked hard, finding a new job every time I got kicked out of my old work place, only to be kicked out again. When I attended the Hunter exam, I worked hard to pass every single round but now I realised that if I took the exam alone back then, I wouldn't have even passed the first round." Without herself even realising, Himeko started to say everything that was in her mind at that moment, even if some things weren't meant to be said. There were a couple of words Shinatobe did not understand as they were too advanced for her time, yet she could feel the frustration and sadness Himeko was feeling. "I just want some peace and quiet for once."

"I'm sorry Himeko, I didn't know that's how you felt."

"I honestly feel like I got no where in my life in the past twelve years," Himeko started to shed tears out of frustration, not knowing how else to express everything that was on her mind at that moment. "I tell myself to run forward and not look back, but in the end I just keep running on the same spot."

"But you are giving it your all," Shinatobe cut in. "Even now, you've been out for two hours training while everyone else is asleep. You clearly work harder than everyone else here."

"I don't think that's good enough though. Whenever I try to reach for something, it just slips right through my fingers."

"Then just try to catch it with both hands next time," Shinatobe suggested. Himeko raised a brow at her statement, to which Shinatobe just demonstrated by trying to catch a mosquito circling around her with both her hands. However, when opened her hands to see it wasn't there. It was still circling around her and Shinatobe was clumsily trying to catch it again and again, "Catching something with both hands is harder than I thought."

Just watching her, Himeko started to chuckle quietly turning her head away. "You know, I haven't really told anyone about all this. I don't have any female friends, and sometimes I keep it to myself since I don't want to ruin the mood."

"You should talk to your friends, that's why they are there in the first place," Shinatobe pointed out, still trying to catch the mosquito.

"You think so?"

"Yes, they'll be disappointed if they find out that you aren't being sharing your problems with them."

"I guess you are right," Himeko smiled. "You can be quite smart sometimes, old hag!"

"I told you to call me aneue, not old hag!"

Although it was amusing to watch, Himeko started to grow annoyed with Shinatobe trying to catch the mosquito (and failing miserably each and every time). "Can you stop doing that, it's annoying me know."

"I never realised how hard it is to catch something, although you're using two hands." Shinatobe thought out loud. "That aside, what are you trying to catch?"

"You mean who," Himeko corrected her. "My older brother. We were both separated after our clan was murdered."

"I'm sorry."

"That doesn't really make me feel any better, but I guess moping around isn't going to help either."

"That aside, I'm really annoyed at the fact that we have to share tents with those uncivilised men. I couldn't even close my eyes for a second before someone's snoring woke me up."

"You're right, I held my anger in the whole day." Himeko agreed._ "Maybe I should show them their place tomorrow. How dare they talk to me in that manner."_ But then she had another thought which made her smirk at the sound of it, _"Having a tent to myself doesn't sound too bad after all."_

"Himeko," Shinatobe shook the younger girl by the shoulder, "Is everything alright?"

"Yes, I just thought that having a whole tent to myself doesn't sound like a bad idea," she smiled. _"Besides, someone has to teach those men some discipline."_

Once they were fully absorbed in their small talk, Himeko completely forgot about her earlier worries for a while. But then, she suddenly sensed a couple of people heading their way from the woods.

"Himeko!" Shinatobe whispered over, once she sensed them too.

"Yeah, there are around five of them." Himeko informed her. "They are heading towards us." The girls remained quiet, waiting for the five people to appear out of the woods, anticipating who it might be. "Stay back Shinatobe!"

"Alright!"

Shinatobe remained behind Himeko whose eyes were fixed on the path leading from the woods. Once the five individuals came into view, Himeko took a good look at them. They were all fairly lean men in their twenties. All five had similar features, so there was no doubt that they were all related in some way. But once they were close enough, Himeko and Shinatobe could get a closer look. Under the moonlight, they could make out their distinct features. All of them had black hair, and deep blue eyes.

"Himeko, their eye colour is exactly the same as yours." Shinatobe whispered over to her.

"Mmh," she nodded slightly, "I noticed that."

Once the men were standing face to face with the pair, the tallest started to speak. "Were you the ones that caused all that ruckus?" He was referring to the trees Himeko had cut down during her training.

Shinatobe was about to open her mouth to answer, but Himeko stopped her. "Before that, I would like to know who were are giving an answer to."

"I beg your pardon."

"I asked for your name."

The man looked at his comrades, not being able to believe that a little girl was starting to interrogate him. He then turned back to her, "I am Hideaki Inoue, first son of the current head of the Inoue clan."

_"Oh boy, how did I know..."_

* * *

**Omake - Life with Boys Part 2 - First Period Drama**

Mornings at the dojos have the same pattern. You wake up, clean or cook, eat and then train. Usually everyone minds their own business unless someone gets into a fight over who woke up last or something along those lines. Hearing her alarm clock chime, Himeko unwillingly opened her eyes and decided to get up. However, unlike other days today felt a bit different. She felt a lot more sluggish than other days although she got a good nights sleep. After finally shutting off her alarm clock, she got up and started to put her futon away when she noticed something on the white sheets she didn't remember being there before.

It was a red stain. A blood stain.

That's when she remembered, _"Oh yeah, I just remembered that I'm a girl..."_

Instead of folding the sheets, she threw them in the corner ready to be washed and took a new set of clothes to the toilet to change into before thinking of a way to deal with her new problem. But being in the mountains isolated from civilisation with only men around was an issue. She needed help.

Not knowing what to do, she went to seek help from the person who would be the calmest in this situation, but also the person who wouldn't give a fuck. Yes, the first person she went to was Toshiro.

"Toshi, can I ask you for a favour?"

"No."

"Can you go to town and buy me something?"

"No."

"I got my periods for the first time today."

"No, go away."

"Please."

"No."

"If you don't buy me pads then there's going to be blood everywhere!"

"Don't care. Go ask Natsu, he was going to go to town anyway."

Himeko narrowed her eyes at Toshiro, _"If I trusted those two I wouldn't have come here..." _With no other choice, Himeko went to Natsume who was just about to leave. "Natsu, do me a favour. Can you buy me sanitary pads?"

"Sure, leave it to me!" He smiled giving her a thumbs up.

With him gone for a few hours, Himeko somehow managed to keep her flow under control and decided not to leave her room for the day. When Natsume returned, he visited her room to hand her the sanitary pads he bought. Although Himeko finally smiled in relief once she saw him coming into the room, her expression dropped once she took a look inside the bag.

"Natsu..."

"Yeah, what's up?"

"These are diapers, not pads..."

Haruko soon rushed over to the scene when he heard Himeko shouting and screaming at Natsume from her room.

"What's going on?!" He questioned.

"I started my periods," she answered him in between shouting at Natsume.

Haruko gasped, "Oh no, are you okay? Did you eat? Do you need warm milk? Shall I set you a warm bath? Do you need a hot water bottle? An extra blanket? Chocolate? Ice cream? I'll buy it for you!"

"Just a packet of sanitary pads would be good enough for now," Himeko answered calmly.

"Sanitary pads? Give me an hour and I'll be back!"

After his older brotherly senses tingled in, he stormed out and made his way to the nearest store which was a few kilometres away from the dojo. Exactly one hour later, he returned while Himeko and Natsume waited with anticipation. Why Natsume was waiting with her? He wanted to see whether Haruko could actually do a better job than him since he doubted it.

"I'm back!" Haruko dashed inside her room with n number of shopping bags. Just like one of those magicians you see on TV, he pulled out things from the shopping bags and he just kept going and going with no end. A hot water bottle, back warmer, heated blanket, extra pillows, bubble bath, Himeko's favourite strawberry milk, chocolate, cookies and cream ice cream and the list could just go on. Himeko sat there as her eyes widened with every item he took out while Natsume just sat there with a smug smile on his face.

After around five minutes, he neatly put the plastic bags aside and gave Himeko a wide smile, "There!"

"... that's all nice but I needed pads..."

"... oh yeah..."

Haruko forgot the pads too, making Natsume burst out into uncontrollable laughter as he predicted the outcome. But, Himeko who was not impressed at all just crashed back onto the three new pillows.

"Forget it, I'll just bleed to death!" Just when she decided to turn around and sleep, something hit her head. She turned around and looked at it. She couldn't believe her eyes. "Eureka! Can we all just take a moment to praise the Lord for throwing down a pack of pads for me?"

"Actually, Toshi just threw them in and walked off," Natsume bursted her little celebration.

**Moral of the story -** Himeko, go and buy your own damn sanitary pads!

* * *

**A/n -** Another chapter for y'all :) Himeko was so down during the whole chapter, it felt weird writing her like that. (The omake should have made up for it though)

Now that I'm writing more and more about Shinatobe, I feel like she could be Gon's ancestor. I mean, they both have that simplemindedness in common xD

I keep writing chapters and the War still hasn't started OTL

Well, since I don't have much to say I'll move onto the Reviews:

**Queechi -** You know, Koullua sounds like something Kikiyo would name her child. Next thing, another one pops out of no where and she calls him/her Koullua xD

And Natsume won't punch you in your face unless you're training together. But if you are training together, then he'll just be after your head, forget just simply punching you.

**Abi - **I revised and still turned up at your door for help. Shows how much I suck at stats xD But you begged me to help you with chem so we are even!

Thanks for answering the questions, peasant. Natsume is not for sale btw, although I could picture Toshiro trying to get rid of him. You can try checking ebay once in a while in that case.

**Haine -** Glad you loved it ^^

**TangoAUnicorn - **Shinatobe's love might appear in the next chapter (if I managed to plan the chapters out right that is). It's fun writing Himeko interacting with Kiilua, mainly because they just fight a lot. They fight over anything so yeah, I just like writing arguments (I'm weird, sorry). In Kurapika's case, she goes through a total dilemma and overthinks stuff and takes extreme measures, for example using an online dating advice site that didn't turn out to be that helpful xD Actually, both cases are fun to write, it's just not fun to write her moping around (like in this chapter). Also, don't worry. We can both be chatterboxes together.

The term dodo-head, I think I heard it on TV at some point. I think it was when my little cousin came over and watched a show on the Disney channel or Nickelodeon. Either that or just I imagined things and made it up myself which to be honest could be very likely since we are talking about me in this case. I do a lot of weird things without me knowing xD

**SlightlyYandereMelissa - **I like the name Lou... maybe I'll use it in the future. Reminds me of that guy from Black butler (I think he was called Lau). Also, thank you for checking out my drawings. I'm thinking of redrawing two of them since I have all the time in the world now until September.

Also, if you are wondering, I finished my exams on Monday and I have no school. But I'm suffering from Post Exam Disorder (No it's not a real thing. I made that up). Sometimes I chill and watch TV and I just shoot up and think I have to revise but then I realise that exams are over. Yeah... exams have messed me up. Especially since everyone in my family was caught up with exams and when that happens the whole house seems Haunted. Speaking of haunted, I was revising in my room the other day when I heard scratching noises from the walls (and there is no room on the other side). Okay, lemme shut my mouth before I end up rambling xD


	39. Ready for Battle

***Aniue -** formal term for older brother

***Aneue -** formal term for older sister

* * *

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 39**

_Ready for Battle_

...

"I am Hideaki Inoue, first son of the current head of the Inoue clan."

_"Oh boy, how did I know..."_

"Now that I have told you my name, I expect you to answer my question."

"Aniue*!" The slightly shorter one called. "We should ask them why they are so close to Miyamoto-dono's and Ito-dono's bases."

"They are wearing uniforms, Hikaru." Hideaki pointed out. "These two must be part of their troops."

"_The name Yeddo was changed into Kioto later on, meaning I'm still in Kioto. Although the side branch is in Kioto, it wasn't established this early on._" Himeko was absorbed in her thoughts. "_Their home should still be in Otaka, but then it wouldn't make sense for them to be here. Unless, Otaka was one of the four countries that allied with Yeddo in the war. There were four countries, but I can't exactly recall them anymore. It's been so long since I studied history, my memory is all rusty now."_

Hideaki waited impatiently for Himeko to respond. "So, are you going to answer?"

"_But that doesn't exactly explain why the Inoue clan would be here, unless they took part in the war. But that's impossible, the Inoues don't like to get themselves involved in anything, especially not a war."_

"Himeko!" Shinatobe whispered, shaking her lightly by her shoulders. "He is starting to get impatient with us. He looks angry!"

"_Wait a second! Didn't Shinatobe ask me whether I was part of the Inoue clan earlier today? If she knows them, then they should be quite well known in this time frame." _One by one, Himeko started to connect all the dots leading to a conclusion. "_That's it! The Inoue clan didn't isolate themselves in this time frame; they still interacted with the outside world. But if that were the case, why did they end up isolating themselves?"_

"Look, doesn't she look a bit like our Hyeri?" The shortest one bent down in front of Himeko and started analysing her facial features. "Although Hyeri's hair is a bit longer and her eyes are also a bit rounder…"

"Now that Hiroshi mentions it, she does resemble Hyeri a little." Another one of them bent down to get a closer look. Although she was flattered to be called pretty indirectly, Himeko didn't want them to find out that she was their descendant and that she travelled 500 years into the past. She had to sometimes divert their attention and find a way to cover the fact that she looked like one of them.

Himeko looked at Hideaki, "To answer your question, I was the one training around this area for the past two hours. I sincerely apologise if I caused a lot of ruckus."

"And you are?" He raised a brow.

"Kou," she answered. "Kou is my name." She then lightly pulled Shinatobe forward, "This is my older sister, Shinatobe. We are both taking part in the war!"

"So you two are biological sisters?" Hideaki questioned. Both of them could be sisters if you looked at them from afar, but other than their black hair they had nothing in common. Shinatobe's eyes were hazel while Himeko's were deep blue just like theirs. Not just that, if they were sisters then he would have at least expected them to act a little similar. As they all say, two peas from the same pot but these two were certainly not from the same pot. While Himeko was confidently answering his questions one by one after giving each of them some thought, Shinatobe stood behind Himeko trying to go along with whatever she was saying.

"That's right!" Himeko nodded before looking over at Shinatobe. "Isn't that right, aneue*?"

"Y-yes." Shinatobe nodded her head slightly. "_It's a bit creepy when she calls me that all of the sudden, but why is she lying to them?"_

"That's a real shame then, I really thought you were a long lost little sister of ours. Hyeri would have really liked a playmate her age!" The shortest one of them smiled at her. "My name is Hiroshi Inoue, I'm the youngest son of the head." He then stood back up and looked at Shinatobe, "It's a pleasure to meet you too, Shinatobe-dono."

"The pleasure is mine," Shinatobe bowed back politely.

The rest of the Inoues continued to introduce themselves in order of their age.

"Hikaru Inoue. I'm the second oldest."

"Hibiki Inoue, I'm the third son of the head."

"I'm Hayato Inoue, fourth son of the head."

"_What's with all the H's?"_ Himeko asked herself. "_Himeko, Hakuryuu, Hanako, Hakuren, Hachirou, Hideaki, Hikaru, Hibiki, Hayato, Hiroshi, Hyeri, does the Inoue clan have some sort obsession with the letter H?"_

"That's all good, but what is the Inoue clan doing here?" Shinatobe asked curiously. "I mean, you are a noble bloodline after all."

"Don't you know the reason?" Hiroshi asked.

Shinatobe shook her head in response, "No."

"They are taking part in the war," Himeko answered Shinatobe's question.

"That's right. Shinatobe-dono, your little sister seems to be quite wise compared to you." Hiroshi said in a slightly teasing manner. "Just because we are from a noble bloodline doesn't give us an excuse for not serving out country. Our bases are on the other side of forest. We are taking the front lines along with Miyamoto-dono and Ito-dono."

"That's enough, Hiroshi!" Hideaki cut in. "We should get going now that we know who caused the disturbance."

"Can't we just stay a little longer, aniue?" Hiroshi pleaded. "You have to stop being so serious all the time and take life a little easier!"

"_Why are all the adults here so immature and childish?"_ Himeko asked herself. "_First Shinatobe, now this guy."_

"We are in the middle of a war, Hiroshi." Hidaeki reminded him. "We don't have the luxury to stay calm during this time. Let's head back!"

"Alright," Hiroshi lowered his head in slight disappointment. "Well, let's hope to meet up sometime soon. Until then, take care Shinatobe-dono, Kou. You two should go to sleep too now, you can continue cutting down the rest of the forest tomorrow."

"_Oi, why does Shinatobe get the special treatment and not me? And did he just make fun of me? Does he think I'm some sort of woodsman to be cutting down trees everyday?"_

"You take care too," Shinatobe replied.

The Inoue brothers started taking their leave towards their forest, while the girls remained behind and watched them leave. Unlike the others, Hiroshi made sure to look back once in a while and smile before he kept walking. Himeko occasionally glanced over at Shinatobe and saw her returning a much more awkward smile.

"_Oi, oi, are those two perhaps?"_ Himeko wondered before she sighed. "_Ugh, the air reeks of love. Too bad air fresheners weren't invented yet."_

"Aren't they all really handsome?" Shinatobe asked in awe, her eyes still fixed on them leaving the scene gracefully.

"Handsome, huh?" Himeko asked before giving Shinatobe a wide grin. "Why don't we just ask Hiroshi-dono? I'm sure he'd be more than happy to answer your question."

"No, don't do that!"

"Maybe I should call him back here," Himeko thought out loud. "But then again, it wouldn't take me long to run and catch up to them either."

"Himeko!"

"Ah, what a beautiful night to be falling in love ~" Himeko started singing random lyrics made up on the spot. "With the full moon watching over you~"

Shinatobe started pulling on her cheeks, "Stop teasing me like that!"

"Leot go oef me, stoopid old haag!" Himeko warned, trying to form coherent words.

"Only if you agree to stop teasing me."

"Fine!"

Shinatobe let go, but Himeko still gave her a smug grin. "Heh!"

"Well, don't you agree? They are _all_ really handsome." This time, Shinatobe made sure to emphasise the fact that they were all good looking to avoid getting teased again.

"_She does have a point. It would be disrespectful calling my ancestors hot, but they are just really really hot! What a shameless child I am…" _Himeko thought sighing out loudly. "_Not just that, they seem kinda cool too. I've always thought of us Inoues as cowards who hide behind walls but who knew that they were once brave war heroes? Seems like I can finally look at our clan in a new light."_

"If Hideaki-dono is the eldest, then he'd be the next head of the clan, right?" Shinatobe asked.

"Nope." Himeko shook her head. "I'm hundred percent sure that it's going to be Hiroshi!"

"Really?" Shinatobe questioned, tilting her head in confusion. "But he is the youngest, wouldn't the title usually go to the oldest?"

"You can just call it a gut feeling," Himeko smiled confidently in return. "_I'm sure I've heard of Hiroshi Inoue before. A lot of people in my clan used to say that he was one of the greatest leaders of the clan despite the fact that he was one of the youngest in his family. He had four older brothers and four sisters, so on a side note I guess his parents were pretty preoccupied but nonetheless I can see why they chose him over Hideaki. In a way, Hiroshi is a lot more charismatic than his older brothers."_

Once they were out of sight, Himeko let out a deep breath and sat down on the grass. "I'll be spending the night over here, so you can go back if you want."

"Well, I'll spend the night outside too then!" Shinatobe declared firmly, sitting down a couple of meters away from Himeko.

"Don't push yourself. If you can't handle it then just go back!"

"No, I'm staying!"

"Suit yourself."

"Himeko?"

"What is it?"

"You lied to Hiroshi-dono and his brothers earlier," Shinatobe started off. "You said your full name was Himeko Inoue, and your features looked awfully similar to theirs and you also hid your name from them, but then again it doesn't make any sense at the same time. You mentioned your clan being murdered. When I think I know you, I suddenly realise that I don't anymore."

"It's quite complicated for your small brain to understand."

"My brain will handle it somehow!" Shinatobe reassured.

"I feel like it's something I can't tell you," Himeko explained. "You've been asking me that question four times today, and there is a reason why I haven't told you yet. It's not that I don't trust you, it's just that I can't tell you."

"Will you be able to tell me in the future?"

"Depends, but probably not."

Shinatobe pouted hearing her response, "Is it really that big of deal?"

"Hm, let's see…" Himeko thought. "Telling you the secret of my existence and origin might cause the whole universe to fall apart and end up in total chaos."

"Sounds awful, I shouldn't have asked."

"_As if. This woman really believes everything that comes out of my mouth doesn't she? I could tell her that I'm from the future and she'd believe me right away!"_

"That brings me back to my earlier theory. Are you really not God's messenger?"

"_Does she honestly still think that? She seems pretty confident with it as well, let's just go along with it for the fun of it!"_ Himeko thought to herself. "Sure, I guess my secret is out now. By the way, God told me to tell you to treat me well and listen to everything I say while I'm here."

"Won't the universe fall into chaos now that you've told me?"

"Ah, don't worry about that. I'll handle it!" Himeko lied. "Now that you've got your answer, shut up and go to sleep!"

"Do we really have to sleep outside?"

"I told you, if you want to sleep inside then go ahead!" Himeko replied. "I'll arrange a tent or something without men in them tomorrow, so just be quiet for today!"

"Can you really do that?" Shinatobe questioned. "I've tried today and they told me to change outside the bushes and I couldn't even find a bush without men lurking around."

"We'll just have to try and talk it out with them," Himeko answered. "Now be quiet and go to sleep. I'm tired so I'm not going to answer your questions from here onwards."

"Well, good night then."

"Night."

…

Due to her being used to waking up at four in the morning at the dojo, Himeko was the first one out of the girls to wake up the next morning, aided by the sun shining on their faces and the birds singing their annoyingly loud songs. After rubbing her eyes, Himeko looked around hoping that she had finally woken up from this insane dream but she was still in the same position she fell asleep in. Well, she rolled over a few metres due to her habit of moving around in her sleep but that's besides the point here.

"_Great, so it wasn't a dream after all!"_ Himeko sighed. "_I've tried sleeping, slapping myself and hitting my head against the trees and nothing worked. Maybe I should just jump off a cliff and see if that wakes me up. But then again, if that doesn't work I'll probably drown since I can't swim. Why don't I get any great ideas when I really need them?"_

Himeko glanced over at their bases in the distance. The men were slowly getting ready for their day too, but before that Himeko wanted to have a '_heart to heart'_ with Ito and tell him _exactly_ what was on her mind. Since she didn't have a clue on how to get back home, she at least wanted to sleep comfortably without bugs biting her whenever she doesn't pay attention. She looked over at the peacefully sleeping Shinatobe and tried to lightly shake her awake. Since that didn't do anything, Himeko decided to shake her harder. "Old hag, get up!"

Shinatobe got up with her eyes still closed and mumbled, "Shinatobe reporting for duty, Hiroshi-dono."

Looking at her half asleep state, Himeko sighed. "Okay first of all, you're still half asleep and secondly, you aren't even in Hiroshi's troop."

"Oh, it's just you Himeko…"

"_Why does she sound so disappointed?" _Himeko asked herself. "Let's go and get some food and then start training. You still need to learn to use a sword properly!"

Shinatobe looked around, "Where am I?"

"Oh for fucks sake, just get up already!"

After snapping Shinatobe out of her half asleep state, Himeko decided to take her along to have a talk with the troop leader. Speaking of Shinatobe, Himeko seriously wondered how she survived out in that hut all by herself when she couldn't even distinguish between her dreams and reality after waking up. Shinichi must really have his hands full with a sister like her. How a moron like her could even discover and develop _Nen_ on her own still baffled Himeko. How she could be part of the same _Nen_ type as her baffled her even more. Well, there are a couple of odd people in this world and Shinatobe certainly was one of them.

Once they arrived at Ito's tent, Himeko took the same approach as she did the night before. "Excuse me, I'm coming inside."

Ito wasn't surprised to see her again. It was the opposite actually, he had expected her to come back and complain after spending a night in a tent along with men since he didn't know about Himeko stubbornly deciding to spend the night outside.

"You're back again, little girl," he greeted her indifferently. "Are you going to complain again. If you don't like the tents then tough luck!"

"Complain?" Himeko questioned, tilting her head slightly. "I'm here to negotiate!"

"Negotiate?" Ito asked with curiosity. He wondered what this little girl would want to negotiate with him. He had expected her to whine and bitch about the men pushing her around.

"Let's lay down some rules before we start, shall we?" Himeko started off. "I would appreciate you calling me Himeko, I absolutely cannot stand your indifferent attitude towards us two. Next up, if you want me to talk to you with respect, I expect to be addressed with the same kind of respect in return. I would also like you to keep in mind that we didn't sign up for this, so we aren't obligated to stay here and play around with you. If we do leave, you are the ones losing out on possibly two of the strongest fighters in this war. If you abide by these conditions, I will happily continue and start out deal."

"_When did she have time to think of all this?"_ Shinatobe asked herself. She certainly didn't remember Himeko having time to prepare this so called deal since she was together with her all the time; stuck to her like gum on a dirty shoe. "_For her age, she definitely is a good speaker."_

"_Unfortunately, this insolent child is right," _Ito thought. "_That woman over there is known as the Heaven's maiden and her role in the war would be great. We cannot afford to lose her. When it comes to the child, she apparently has the same ability as Shinatobe and more knowledge of it. Having these two in mine and Miyamoto's troops would be greatly advantageous to us, we can't ruin it!" _

Himeko knew that he was thinking about her offer. In her opinion, she didn't really ask for much yet, so she didn't understand why he was thinking so much. All she asked for so far was some respect, but then again she knew he was calculating the odds of winning without Shinatobe and her and comparing it to the odds with the two. "So, shall we begin?"

Ito nodded, "I'll lend you an ear."

"Great!" Himeko smiled. "First of all, Shinatobe and I would want to be provided with a tent for ourselves!"

"The tents are shared by around a hundred men, you can't possibly have one for yourself. That is absurd!"

Himeko shook her head. "Those tents are far too big for us to sleep in, but this one will do. This is your tent isn't it?"

"I cannot give up my tent for that reason!" Ito cut in. "This is where the leaders of the troop discuss strategies."

"You see this?" Himeko asked, showing her arm. "I've never had this many insect bites in my life before. Do you know what kind of life I'm supposed to lead? I used to have guards standing outside my room, making sure that not even a fly or an ant could enter. My skin is supposed to be white and flawless like porcelain, not red and patchy like a sun dried tomato."

Himeko was obviously over exaggerating and acting all spoilt. She had clearly forgotten about the fact that she also had to do hard labour, survive a week on Zevil island and a week in that forest near the dojo where she had gotten a lot more insect bites. Nonetheless, Ito tried his best to keep his anger concealed while Shinatobe was still astounded by the fact that Himeko's talking tone changed during every sentence. She started off sophisticatedly, but now she just sounded like a spoilt and rotten princess.

"For someone as stupid as you, I'll break things down!" Himeko continued. "You see, since we are your key fighters, you have to give us the attention we deserve. If I don't get my sleep, I won't be able to stay awake and concentrate during battles. If I don't get three meals a day, I won't have the energy to fight. If we get bitten by insects, we might get infected and stay down for a week or so due to illnesses. In other words, it's up to you to decide how efficiently we do our end of the bargain!"

"In that case, I guess I have to make you both a space in this tent." Ito answered almost immediately after Himeko laid down her argument.

"_Himeko actually managed to convince him."_

However, Ito wasn't done talking just yet. "But only if you prove yourselves to be worthy of it all. I don't want to provide a pair of weaklings with something they aren't worthy."

"Now you're finally speaking my language," Himeko's lips curved upwards. "Go on, I've set my conditions, you set yours!"

"Your section of our troops will be moving out in the afternoon," Ito went on to explain. "Prove yourself worthy not with your words, but with your swords."

"You want us to perform well in battle?" Himeko raised a brow.

"I guess you are finally speaking my language too now!" Ito grinned back.

"You know Ito-dono, I guess we'll be getting along really well!"

"I was thinking the exact same thing, Himeko." Ito agreed, before giving those two a warning. "But let me tell you, now that you've raised my expectations I expect nothing less. If you fail to hold your end of the bargain, I will work you two to the bone. From cleaning duty to cooking, you will be in charge of them all, understood?"

Himeko certainly didn't expect nothing less from him. "Roger, boss!"

While the two of them were caught up giving each other those scary looks, Shinatobe was caught in between wondering how the fuck she got herself into the mess. At first, she wasn't so sure whether Himeko could actually work things out with Ito but once Himeko started talking, she gradually started gaining more confidence in her. But now although Himeko certainly seemed like she was brimming with confidence, Shinatobe who didn't fight one single battle in her life thought differently. Maybe she should just run away or hide somewhere, but then again that wouldn't work. _"What am I supposed to do now..."_

Himeko finally turned her attention to Shinatobe, "Shall we get going then?"

"Yes," Shinatobe nodded quietly.

Ito and Himeko glanced at each other once again, exchanging another one of those dangerously confident looks which honestly just frightened poor Shinatobe again. She was stuck in the middle of the chess board, being pushed around by the two as if she were some sort of pawn.

"I expect great things from you, Himeko." Ito said before they left.

Himeko turned around and her lips curved upwards again. "And I expect this tent to be ready for us two by tonight!"

However, it didn't take long for Shinatobe to snap once they were out of the tent.

"What were you thinking Himeko?! I've never fought a battle in my life, let alone did I ever hold a sword. How are we going to hold our end of the bargain."

"Didn't you hear him?" Himeko asked. "He said that us two will be moving out in the afternoon so we have plenty of time to train. I have a trick up my sleeve but before that, let's go and grab some breakfast!"

Shinatobe wasn't sure whether Himeko was serious about this or whether she had finally snapped and yesterday's events had finally got to her. Although her confidence did make it seem like she had some sort of plan, Shinatobe just couldn't be too sure when it came to Himeko. One moment Himeko seemed like an ordinary, spoilt child but in other moments she seemed like a confident future leader. Also, Ito seemed strict so neither of them had any idea of how high his expectations were. Let's not mention the fact that Shinatobe had somehow earned herself the nickname of the 'Heaven's maiden' without her even knowing and became some sort of celebrity in her town. Pressure just kept on being added, and to her it just felt like she was going to explode at some point.

After eating breakfast, Himeko and Shinatobe returned to the training spot from yesterday. Some men snickered at the fact that they were going to train since they were all brimming with confidence, but to Himeko the war didn't matter. She wasn't training to win the war, she was training to get stronger for herself. She wanted to train so she wouldn't get left behind by everyone else, and so that people could finally rely on her instead of her relying on others. Starting off with their usual Ten and Ren training, Himeko continued to explain to Shinatobe that there are such things as _Advanced Nen Techniques_ too. Although Himeko never had the change to learn each one of them under Toshiro's teaching, she remembered Natsume talking about it the day she left for Yorkshin. Although she panicked after hearing that there were more things to learn, she was quickly calmed down by the fact that some people could learn these advanced techniques by religiously training their basics. However, although Himeko didn't remember all of the advance techniques, she certainly remembered that she started using _Shu_ without it being taught to her. She didn't remember what caused her to learn it, but she did conclude that it could have been her extensive meditation to increase her ability to control _Ten_ and Natsume's sword fighting classes.

The fact that Natsume's classes are sort of like life or death to her, she knew that she had to push herself during them in order to at least eat dinner that day after training. That could have been the reason why she developed _Shu_ all of the sudden, but she didn't have the time to slowly teach Shinatobe how to use a sword to fight. Neither was she Natsume to put Shinatobe in a spot and fight to the end. She had to find a way to get her point across so Shinatobe could have more time to practice.

In order to do so, Himeko decided to go for the approach that Shinatobe would understand the best; demonstration. After asking Shinatobe to use _Gyo_ by focusing her aura in her eyes only, Himeko held her sword and started performing _Shu_. It was an advanced application _Ten, _applying and extending their aura into an object; in this case Himeko's katana. While using _Gyo, _Shinatobe was able to see an aura surrounding the katana. Afterwards, Himeko went on to explain the technique since she had already demonstrated it.

"I think I understand it now," Shinatobe said. "You think of an object as an extension of your arm and continue extending your aura into it."

Himeko nodded with a smile, "Precisely!"

"What do I do now?

"We will continue to train of course!" Himeko replied. "The best way to learn is by experience. Show me what you're made off!"

"You want me to fight you?!" Shinatobe exclaimed. "You have a lot more experience than me, you are obviously going to win."

"In battle, you can't choose how strong your opponents will be. You'll be lucky to get someone weaker than you, but what if there is someone stronger? Will you run away, or will you continue to fight?"

"You have a point but..."

"I learnt by my teacher nearly tying to kill me every day. He doesn't go easy on me and although I always complain I have to admit that I won't be able to use swords as good as I do today if he went easy on me."

"Your teacher tries to k-k-kill you?" Shinatobe stuttered the word out, with her eyes and mouth wide open.

"That's right! He's like that when it comes to training but otherwise he is a different person," Himeko explained. "That aside, we are wasting precious time. Even if you don't want an opponent, I certainly do so if I charge at you then you can't blame me!"

"Right! I'll pay attention."

And so, Shinatobe prepared herself for hours of training. Although it was hard for her to get the hang of using _Shu _at first, she slowly got the hang of it although it took her a while. She noticed that she slipped in and out of it, so she needed a lot more practice for it to become stable enough to use in battle. Unlike her teacher, Himeko went easy on Shinatobe. She had to keep in mind that Ito won't replace their swords and uniform if something happened to them, and when using _Shu_, she could easily slice Shinatobe's blade in half if she wasn't paying attention. Not just that, she also had to keep in mind that Shinatobe wasn't used to extensive training so she didn't want her to get exhausted before the actual battle.

Before they knew it, it was finally time to fight.

* * *

There is no omake today since I have an authors block. I'm running out of nonsense for Himeko, Natsume, Toshiro and Haruko to do xD. But Himeko apparently has a word of advice for you all. Himeko, when you're ready you may speak!

**Himeko :** Cool! So, kids pay attention during your history lessons. You never know when you'll be travelling back into the past! I certainly didn't

**Author :** Girl, you do realise that these so called kids reading this are probably older than you...

**Himeko :** What's it to you? I can call them whatever I want!

**Author :** Yeah yeah, just shut up and go back to war and earn yourself that tent you bitched for.

**Himeko :** And I will come back for revenge. Just you wait for it!

* * *

**A/n -** Ugh, crappy chapter. Sorry -_-' But Himeko is back in the game!

I started writing this chapter and wanted to finish it asap because my brothers just decided to pull tickets to france out of their butt cracks all of the sudden. Not that I'm ungrateful, but now I have to rush packing and stuff since we are supposed to be going tomorrow evening. They somehow managed to come to terms and plan a family trip together and even paid for it which really surprised me... Why you are asking? Well, my eldest brother finished his uni exams and is on a break (he probably passed). My other one probably passed his A-levels too and is going to uni and then there is me who failed my exams like a boss xD We have to celebrate my epic fail lol just kidding. It was mainly because my 16th birthday was yesterday and both my parents' birthday is this week. *gasp* now you know how old I am O_o

Well, in other words I'm going to be abroad for a week and won't be updating at the end of the week like I usually do so I'm updating today instead so yay~ enjoy~

Replies to reviews:

**SlightlyYandereMelissa -** Yeah scratching noises were weird. Especially at 1AM while I was studying for my math exam. I couldn't even wake my parents up to check since they would probably have a go at me for staying up so late. And my Post Exam Disorder has finally been cured xD

**BleachFan2014 -** Although your review was short, it did make my day so thank you ^^ It's good to hear that you like the story so far! And after seeing your username, let me just shamelessly admit that I'm a Hitsugaya fangirl xD Well, name me one person who isn't!

**Abi -** Lol, stop dreaming. I'm not your slave, you are my slave! Btw, thanks for leaving so much mess after breaking into my house today. Got lectured so bad -_- If we do go to the same university in the future, I'm not sharing an apartment with any of you guys!

And the curse of the Inoue Clan?... sounds interesting! Tell me more...

also, we are talking about Natsume. Of course he'll bring back diapers instead of pads.

**xhunterxhunterx -** Wow, I had to double check whether I got the x's in the right places for your username! I hope this chapter lived up to your expectations. I keep saying that Himeko's going out into war for the past few chapters and she still hasn't xD

With Himeko's personality, I just wanted to have a character that claims she isn't spoiled and rude but does have a really spoilt side. Besides, she had to be a Nen type that gets along with Gon's who is an enhancer and one that fights a lot with Killua who is also a transmuter. I guessed that transmuters would fight a lot because both of them would have a sort of distrusting and transmuterish (sorry I can't think of other words to describe transmuters). Same with her brother Hakuryuu who also is (spoiler) also a transmuter so they kinda repel each other like magnets which is why it seems so hard for Himeko to find him. Out of the dojo crew she gets along best with (believe it or not) Toshiro who is also an enhancer like Gon. Damn, I actually put some thought into this...

Also, please don't explode with excitement! This world still needs you! And OMFGHITSREGFIJGB you called me senpai, let me just go calm down in a corner...

P.s sorry for the long reply, I tend to ramble...

**TangoUnicornA -** Oops.. I guess I was half asleep too when I wrote that. Well, I'm pretty sure I've got it right this time. Thanks for excusing my poor eye sight and putting up with it, I'll make sure to go and get them checked. It's been two years after all XD

I agree with Himeko being a messenger of god being far fetched. She swears so much, god would have sent her to hell the moment she opened her mouth. But then again, we are talking about Shinatobe who is let's just say just as clueless as Gon. Please put up with her simplemindedness like you put up with my typo in the last chapter. Also, I'll keep your secret but I'm not better. It's nearly 2AM here!

How I plan out chapters you mean? Well, I'd love to say that I have a note book and organise the chapters and events that happen in it but I'm way to lazy for that. I always try to tell myself to plan but I never do for some reason :/ When it comes to canon arcs I just add extra scenes and dialogue according to the impact Himeko is going to make. For example, during the Zoldyck arc she doesn't really do anything special so she didn't get much action or much dialogue. Hunter exam arc and Yorkshin arc were much longer and she did play a bigger role in them so yeah I added extra scenes with her mainly for a couple of giggles here and there. I just try to imagine what kind of impact she'd have on the story tbh. So for canon arcs, I just go with the flow.

When it comes to OC arcs like this one, the Inoue side clan one and the Dojo training one, I just try to plan in my head before writing the chapter. So I tell myself, this happens, they will say something along the lines of this and the chapter should end like this. But that's also the reason why the length of my chapters vary so much. I just come up with a basic story line and imagine how she could possibly improve as a character ready for the next canon arc (both strength wise and personality wise). It's important for a character to get stronger, but it's more important for a character to mature and learn things during their journey which is why the Chimera ant arc probably made such a big impact due to all the character development. I do try to think of the whole arc before I start writing since it would sometimes a new idea wouldn't fit in too well, but if it does then I don't hesitate to add it as long it's still relevant to the story. For example adding the Inoue clan in this chapter was just a new thought after reading a comment, but it is certainly making Himeko think of them in a new light since she's always thought of them being scared of the outside world. So she kinda becomes more proud of her origin and clan instead of just bearing a grudge against them. Omg I'd better stop here before I start spoiling things xD Oh yeah, if there is a spontaneous idea you can't add in then you can always make a note of it somewhere and it might be used later on.

Wow... looks like I went all out on this reply. Keep in mind that this is just my lazy and unorganised way of doing things and there are other authors out there that have much better methods, but I do hope it helped if you are planning on starting your own fanfic :)

* * *

Okay, I should seriously stop now. It's 2:10AM here and you know what? I'm seeing weird shadows outside my door, so if I don't update this story anymore you should know what happened to me. My house is haunted damn it, if you need a new location to film the next Insidious movie then I guess my house is the perfect place. Like I don't even know what the fuck might be lurking around in the attic.


	40. Struggle

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 40**

_Struggle_

_..._

Even though they were travelling on horses, it took a while for the troops to get to the scenes. Ito's troops took the west, while Miyamoto's troops took east so Himeko and Shinatobe had to go separate ways in this battle. Although she had fought a lot before, Himeko kept remembering the words Natsume always told her during their training sessions; '_a real battle is always different from training'_. Although he pretty much acts stupid from the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes back to bed, deep down Himeko knew that he was a true genius only pretending to be the way he always is. Not only that, she also knew that compared to Toshiro and Haruko, he took his fights very seriously possibly preparing her for the worst during training. When she steps onto the battle ground, she could expect anything and had to be prepared. Just because Nen is rare, it didn't mean that there weren't going to be other people who knew how to use it. There might be someone else with the one in a million talent hidden within the thousands of men fighting on the battle field.

Once they arrived, a warm breeze hit Himeko's face with the strong rusty smell of blood, overwhelming her nose. The smell came in from every direction and all she could do for now was cover her nose and hope for her to get used to the smell after a while. The horses started to slow down, struggling to walk in the muddy ground. Everything in front of her was a mess. These men were zombies, aimlessly trying to take down anything and anyone that came in their way without putting any thought to it. Seeing the bloody swords clash, and hearing the cries of the injured; she knew that this was it. This was war.

Not too far from the main battle ground, the backup troop that Himeko was in got ready to fight. Everyone in her group including her was a newcomer and although they were confidently boasting about being chosen to fight in the front lines over the past two days, they were finally able to snap out of their overconfident phase but it was already too late for that. There was no turning back for them anymore; not that there was one to begin with. However, they could have used those two days to train and prepare for the worst. Running away could mean being labeled as a coward for the rest of their life, but staying may cost them their lives. No one knew how long they had to do this for, or when their next break was going to be. They could go on like this for days, weeks, month even years; that is if they are able to survive for that long.

Seeing everyone getting ready to leave, Himeko too carefully got off her horse before gently patting its face completely forgetting the fact that this very horse kicked her off twice when she tried to get on a couple of hours ago. "It's safer for you to stay here." Whether or not it actually understood her, the horse neighed and backed off a few meters.

Although she's fought quite a handful of battles before, she never felt as confused as she was now. She knew what to do in an one to one fight, but this was far from one. Chaotic was an understatement for what was going on; where was she supposed to even start, and what was she supposed to do first? Not being told what to do seemed just as annoying as being told what to do. At least you couldn't go wrong if someone guided you.

Sensing something approach her from behind her, she drew her sword and struck the already severely injured man behind her. He fell back, hitting the muddy floor with loud splash. Blood was gushing out of his fresh wound.

Himeko gulped, "_I killed him…"_ She examined him; his torn and bloodstained uniform, scarred face, blood shot eyes and damaged sword. He was already at his limit and Himeko made the final blow. The man's lips curved upwards before her close his eyes and lost finally consciousness. Seeing this her hands trembled. It was unsettling, and for just that one split second it seemed like he wanted to be struck; that he wanted to finally escape the life he was living.

"_It's as if he wanted to get killed,"_ she thought before looking at the blood dripping down her sword. "_But, did he really have to choose me to kill him?"_

Whether his motives was to actually kill her if she didn't turn around was unknown to her. He might have killed her if she didn't strike back and moved on, trying to find someone that could eventually end his life. The fact that he chose her out of all the thousands of men there still haunted her thoughts. Was he trying to warn her that everyone there will eventually lose sanity and turn out like him? Whatever the reason may have been, he didn't want to fight. Himeko killed a man who was innocent but forced to do the things he did. Whether she chose to enter the Hunter exam and end up becoming a fighter did not matter, it was against her morals to kill someone who did no wrong. Death was something she feared, so to think that this man chose death as his way out horrified her. No matter how hard she tried, she struggled to accept the fact that he was dead.

Not much later, another group of men ran towards her, continuously swinging their swords. Unlike her own fighting style, they had none. They seemed exhausted and were just hoping to cut down as many people they possibly could by randomly swinging their swords around. Unlike the first man, this group of men didn't have a death wish. They were just hoping to stay alive as long as they possibly could and go home alive, even if it costed them an arm or a leg.

All Himeko did was dodge, tightly gripping onto one of her swords. Although her opponents eyes seemed hopeless, she just couldn't bring herself to hurt them. She could just wipe them out in a go but she never really thought about one thing; they didn't want to fight in the war just like her and Shinatobe, and pretty much most of her own troop. The war wasn't their fault, yet they had to get involved.

"_What am I supposed to do now?" _She asked herself. If only she wasn't this hesitant to kill someone who has done nothing to hurt her. "_So this was what Natsume meant…"_

Although the boys taught her everything they knew, from Nen to swordsmanship, they failed to teach her one thing: to kill in battle.

She held her sword and using _Shu_, she swung it a couple of times, breaking her opponents swords in the process. It was her only option to get out of there for now by disabling her opponents, but she knew that what she did right then was considered as running away.

'_In a real battle, you either die or you live.'_

Her teacher's words echoed in her mind.

"I don't want to die." The thoughts of death had always frightened her.

'_You either kill, or get killed.'_

"I don't want to kill, but I don't want to die either."

'_It's impossible to fight without getting your hands dirty.'_

"Do I just not fight then?"

'_You have to fight to protect what's important to you.'_

No matter what she said to oppose Natsume's voice inside her head, he always had the upper hand. He was always right. She couldn't hate him for being right, she could only curse at herself for being wrong.

"_Am I really going to let everyone get ahead of me?"_ She asked herself. To her it didn't matter how much she worked to get stronger, in the end she just felt completely useless. She always started to feel inferior to everyone around her. "_Am I really going to stand behind everyone and watch their backs?"_

While being in deep thoughts, she was struck by someone's sword. Although she sensed someone coming, she didn't dodge it. She remained motionless, her eyes blankly staring at the floor. The sword cut her left cheek, and went down further to cut the sleeve of her uniform. Luckily she wasn't injured too badly, and although her warm blood was trickling down her left cheek she didn't feel concerned about it. She hoped that the more they injured her and the more they did to hurt her could give her an excuse to fight them, but in the end she was the one feeling the worst about the situation.

'_Do you not have any pride, Himeko?'_

A stern and slightly dissatisfied voice of a women replaced the previous voice of Natsume echoing through her head. It was a distant yet very familiar voice.

'_The Inoues are the elite, and you still have the nerve to call yourself one?'_

She was right, after seeing how great the Inoues were with her own eyes she felt ashamed to call herself one of them. However, she felt even more ashamed to accept that face. "_Do I really want to end up agreeing with my mother when I disagreed with everything she said my whole entire life?"_

Suddenly, a sudden breeze of air hit her face. She looked up for a brief moment, seeing a group of men lying in their own pool of blood.

"You are the little girl from last night," her savior said. "Kou was it? If you are going to stay here, then pay attention! Don't get in anyone's way!"

"_Kou?" _Himeko began to think. Kou wasn't the name her parents or in fact anyone had chosen for her. She chose it herself and grew frond of it. However, the more she started using that name, the more she started to forget why she chose the name in the first place. "_Why have I been so negative ever since I left Yorkshin? He is right, I'm Kou (meaning happiness), I have to be more positive!"_

Kou; it was the name she gave to herself after deciding to reset her life. After realising that her life was never going to be the same after losing everyone who she ever knew, she simply wanted to start again and the first thing she wanted to change was the way people called her, or the way she wanted to look at life. Maybe it was because she took so long to realise what her own name was, but Himeko just started to snicker at herself. She couldn't afford to mope around any longer since the name she chose for herself meant the exact opposite.

Hideaki who was on the watch for anyone else trying to attack Himeko while she was out of it suddenly turned around after hearing a loud slapping sound. He was surprised to see same girl that was distressed a moment ago, smiling while covering her pink, right cheek that was starting to swell a little. Whatever she did to try and snap herself out of it seemed to have worked.

"Die, Inoue!" Another group of men came charging at Hideaki while he wasn't looking, all determined to take the troop leader down.

Himeko held her hand out, "Heaven's judgement number one: Aeroblast."

A strong gust of wind caused the men to fly back a good distance and land in a large puddle. Not being able to believe his eyes, Hideaki turned back to Himeko trying to process the fact that a gust of wind just came out of no where. "Did you just…"

"You should pay more attention," Himeko gave him a smug, mocking grin, repeating what he had just told her a few minutes ago. "After all, the Inoue clan has to live on for centuries."

"Your name was Kou, wasn't it?"

"That's right, I'm Kou!" Himeko nodded. "_I wanted to strive for happiness, so I decided to call myself Kou. I didn't want to be Hime (princess), neither did I want to be Ko (a child). I want to become someone who is able to save myself and not be a damsel in distress. Took me some time to remember that though."_

He pointed at her cheek, "Blood."

Himeko used her sleeve to clean her cheek, before putting her blade back into its sheath. "Thanks! That aside, what are you doing here?" Himeko asked curiously. Usually troop leaders did not participate in battle and Ito was a prime example. They'd stay behind and try to figure out strategies and give orders.

"I take this side along with Ito-dono," he answered. "I should be asking you what you were doing staring into space like that. Your comrades need your help. The newcomers fell quickly and need their wounds treated."

"Isn't there anyone who is medically trained her?"

"I sent some of my men back to bring back professionals who can treat them properly, but nearly everyone that came with you is down. I'm assuming that your batch was filled with newcomers. They caused us more trouble than they helped us."

Although he was right, Himeko somehow found a disliking at how he chose to phrase it. She admits, the men were all full of themselves, overly confident being chosen to fight in the front lines and sure of returning home alive. It was stupid of them to think so, but they were inexperienced. The tense atmosphere affected everyone, even her.

"None of us were born knowing how to fight," she pointed out. "You learn to walk by falling down a couple of times, I doubt even you were born knowing how to walk." Although he has heard her talk in the same tone the previous night, he was still awestruck by the fact that she spoke to him in a mocking tone, knowing who he was. "_Like I'm the one to talk, I don't even know what to do next."_

The girl who was confidently insulting the eldest son of the Inoue head couldn't help but feel disheartened again. It's not like suddenly snapping out of her thoughts was going to make things better for her. Hardly anyone there was given the choice to fight, and neither did anyone do anything to hurt her. If these people did something wrong then she wouldn't hesitate as much as she did at the moment.

"I don't know what kind of fantasy world you are living in, but let me give you a word of advice," Hideaki started off. "Us humans aren't saints, we were born given the choice to choose between good and evil. A good person can't always be good unless they weren't given the choice to do bad, and a bad person can't always be bad unless they weren't given the choice to do good."

Himeko tilted her head in confusion, "_I don't really get his point."_

Noticing her confused expression, Hideaki decided to continue to explain. "In other words, in order to live you have to sin. The biggest sin of someone who chooses not to follow human nature is their innocence."

Although she knew that he had a point, she still didn't like his philosophy. It sounded like he was actually defending all the criminals in this world by saying that humans are both good and evil so it's in their nature to kill innocent people once in a while. There were countless of people in the world that were saint like; Gon and Shinatobe were just two of the many; but according to Hideaki they were refusing to sin by going against human nature. There were countless of demons in the world as well; Hisoka, Illumi, the Phantom Troupe again were just a couple she could list at the top of her head. But she also saw that the Phantom Troupe was prepared to sacrifice their own lives for the sake of their comrades. According to him, the ideal human was a mixture of good and bad.

Being in war zone, Hideaki didn't let his guard down. Another group of men charged at him, and he took them all down. "These men want to kill you, although they have the choice to stay back and do nothing just like you. They could just fight to protect themselves, but they are going after us. Do you still think that everyone here is as innocent as you think they are?"

"_He's actually got a really good point,"_ Himeko thought_. "I can't believe I'm getting life advice from my deceased great great great great great great great grea- wait how many greats are there supposed to be and how many greats did I just say. If this is around 500 years in the past and the average person has a lifespan of around eighty years then I guess it should be around ten. But then again it could be more or less based on environmental factors. Wait, I can just call him my ancient grandpa, or great times n grandpa where n is the number of generations he is old! Am I over thinking this all right now?"_

"Looks like you finally understood."

"_Well yeah, I understood it a minute or so ago but I was too busy thinking what I'm supposed to call you."_

Hideaki wasted no time and left her behind, returning to the help out his own troop. For some reason, she felt proud of her origins watching him leave. Being troop leaders, the Inoue brothers didn't have to go into battle, yet they still did. Hideaki had a lot of pride, but then again she couldn't deny the fact that she had a lot of pride as well. She understood that the reason he spoke in the manner he did was because of his pride but that didn't change the fact that he was a brave warrior. Himeko never understood why the Inoues didn't leave their mansion. She thought it was because of pride; because they thought that they were above everyone else. That was why she decided to never question it again. She thought of them as cowards, people who weren't open minded enough to accept anyone other than their own kind but now that she met Hideaki, Hiroshi and the others, she felt content.

For some reason, Himeko felt like she had to rebuild the clan and merge the side clan and main clan back together, just like it was in the time she was in more than she ever did before. These men were heroes, and the world needed to know how great her clan truly was. She wanted to keep the legacy going and show off how brave her clan was. However one mystery still remained, why did the Inoues decide to seal off the mansion in the first place?

Her hands traveled to her sword on her waist before she drew it and cut the man that approached her from behind.

...

The battle went on for hours. No one was for sure how long it was going to take and when they could finally return to their bases. Some people managed better than others, but the fact that more and more men fell was inevitable. Himeko couldn't help everyone, there were just too many but she tried her best carrying the injured to the tents to get treated. It wasn't her duty to do so, but she felt like she had to. Just like Hideaki mentioned earlier, there weren't many trained professionals around and to make matters worse, the conditions were insanitary. In her own time even a child knew that washing their hands after using the potty was basic hygiene, but unfortunately things were different 500 years ago. A lot of men were left unattended as there weren't enough people to treat them and everyone waited for another batch of medics to come by to aid them.

"There it is, attack their tents!" A few dozen men charged at the medical tent from all directions, leaving the few soldiers guarding the tent outnumbered. Hearing screams from outside, Himeko stepped out to see their enemy so close to the tent. It wouldn't require much effort to already kill the half dead men lying inside. She couldn't possibly take them all on by herself, there were just too many to use a sword. If she didn't pay attention, then someone could just slip past her and enter the tent while she was preoccupied. She could use her wind blast, but all it would do was send the enemy flying back and they will return a while later to try the same thing.

_"Would using my other technique be too risky?"_

Looking around, the scene in front of her was a total mess. She couldn't tell her comrades apart from her enemies and she was right, using her other technique would be too risky. It could hit the people she didn't want to hurt which would make things more complicated for her side. There were already hundreds of men requiring immediate medical attention, so she couldn't afford to increase the number. However, with her limited attacks she was starting to run out of options now. She had to act fast, but she didn't know how to do it.

All of the sudden, she heard a voice behind her, "Men, retreat!"

She turned around to see her _very great_ grandfather again.

"Those trees you cut down last night, they weren't cut using a sword. The cuts were too clean," he explained. "If you can possibly use that again right now it would give us an advantage. You can use it, right?"

"Right," Himeko nodded quietly, amazed by how observant he was.

"Good, we will wait for our men to get out of the way." He stated, watching his and Ito's men run cluelessly trying to get away from there. No one knew what was going to happen, not even Hideaki, but whatever it was the men chose to trust their leader while Hideaki decided to trust Himeko. Although he denied it the previous night, he did feel like Himeko was somehow related to him and he felt like he had the duty to guide her in the war, making sure that she doesn't hurt herself. "Now!"

"Heaven's judgement number two: Aerodisc."

Although Hideaki expected something like this to happen, he still couldn't help but feel impressed by her Nen ability. For him, this was phenomenal; something completely out of this world. He wasn't the only one, men who were peeking out of the tent were just as impressed as him. They watched in amazement as the disc spun, cutting whoever or whatever came in its way, leaving the cut torsos of the men fall to the ground followed by their lower half. It was a gruesome way to die. Just like bowling pins, they fell one by one until the disc took a u-turn returning back to Himeko. All that was left in the end were parts of their enemies bodies scattered around in a sea of their blood.

"Listen up everyone, having her guarding the tent is enough. It's only for a while until we get backup, so go and aid your comrades!" Hideaki ordered. The men saluted and walked away from the tent, off to continue fighting the real battle. "I'll leave the rest to you then."

She wasn't really sure whether he was trying to help her out as he knew how much she struggled to actually kill the enemy in battle, or whether he was just trying to send out more men to fight by making her stay there alone. Nonetheless, she was sure that there weren't going to be any more visitors for a while judging by the bodies lying all over the place. Once he was gone though, she finally got a chance to sit down after so many hours. Physically she wasn't tired, but mentally she was exhausted. Fighting one on one battles was one thing, fighting in a war was another. And this was only day one.

She had no idea on when she'll be able to get back home, or whether she would actually get back home. She wondered whether people had noticed her going missing and went on a search for her. Knowing Toshiro and Natsume, she knew that they wouldn't bother to look for her. They would probably wait a couple of days, thinking that she got lost in the forest but once Haruko returned back to the dojo he would file a missing person report and get the police all over the world to look for her. Maybe he already started and notified all her other friends. There might even be a reward for whoever finds her.

_"Maybe I'm all over TV right now. I'd be quite famous in that case. 'Pretty girl goes missing in dangerous forest', maybe that's going to be the newspaper headlines for the next few weeks." _She thought._ "That just means Gon and Killua have to go searching for another missing person, and Leorio has to put his books aside for a while and start looking for me too. Wait, if I'm all over the news then Kurapika would be worried and looking all over the place for me too, right? I mean, I am irreplaceable after all! I just hope they sent a cute picture of me to the TV and newspaper offices."_

Her irrelevant thoughts were cut short by the painful screams coming from inside the tent. She didn't think much of it at first, the men inside were heavily wounded so of course they'd be screaming in pain but the louder the screams got, the more concerned she became. She turned around and leaned over, trying to take a glimpse of what was going on inside. However, after seeing what was going on inside, she couldn't sit still. She marched inside and approached the man in charge.

"If you keep going like this, these men are going to die of infections!" She told him.

"Infections?" He questioned. "What do you mean?"

That was when she realised. Sanitary equipment only became must haves around two hundred years ago. Of course they wouldn't have any antiseptics, and of course they'll use the same equipment for every single patient, cleaning them every once in a while with just water to get the blood off.

"Listen up, you can't just use water. If your equipment is dirty, then the men can become ill a lot faster because their wounds are open," she tried to explain using the most simplistic vocabulary she could think of. _"If I remember correctly, they introduced carbonic acid as an antiseptic but I doubt any of them even know what carbonic acid is. Ethanol can be used too, but where are they going to get that from?"_

"Do you have a suggestion?"

"Could you perhaps get hold of some sake?"

"Sake?"

"Yes, it's better to clean their wounds using sake instead of water. You could say that it cleans much better. After that, you should use some cloth to wrap around the wound making sure that it doesn't get dirty." Himeko explained. _"Although it's a pretty weak alcohol, it is a lot better than just using plain water."_

For a split second there, he actually thought that Himeko requested sake for her to drink but at least that made more sense. He had never heard of anyone applying alcohol to an open wound before, it just sounded ridiculous and it was a waste of a bottle of good alcohol.

"You can trust me on this one!" She reassured confidently. "It will sting a little when you apply it on the wound, but it will prevent the wound from getting any worse."

Although he was hesitant at first, he requested to bring back some sake to be used as antiseptic before bandaging the wounds with some cloth. And so, time passed with her running around the tent helping people out and eventually, day one was over and Himeko's batch was allowed to go back to their base. However, on the way back she remember something, or someone very important. Shinatobe who left at the same time as her, Himeko hadn't thought about how she would have fared in the battle, neither did she want to imagine it. She was bad off herself, so she didn't want to know what Shinatobe was doing all that time.

Eventually, they've arrived and Himeko was once again kicked off that ungrateful horse of hers but once she got back up, the horse just left along with all the other horses that were led back to the stall. Well, a horse with attitude for a girl with attitude. Although she wanted to pick that horse up and throw it down a cliff that moment, she had bigger things to worry about. She had to find Shinatobe and make sure she was alright. She trusted her to look after herself, but she had a gut feeling that things didn't work out that good for her either.

She rushed through the crowd to get out of Ito's base and walked to Miyamoto's base hoping to find Shinatobe, but once she arrived it was very hard to find her. Their base was just as chaotic as hers, with men running all over the place. Finding Shinatobe in this would be as hard as finding a needle in a haystack, but then she remembered. Nen. Shinatobe was the only person in Miyamoto's troop that could use Nen, so all she had to do was find the person with the strongest life energy. Moving through pack was tough, but eventually she found herself walking to the exact location where she had been training just last night.

As Himeko got closer, she saw Shinatobe crouched down on the floor with her back towards her, hearing quiet sniffles coming from her direction. It was quiet obvious that she was crying, but Himeko didn't know how to approach her. She had never really dealt with a friend that cried, neither did she ever see any of her friends cry so she didn't exactly know what to do in this type of situation. Was she just supposed to stay back and let her be, or should she rather call out to her?

For some reason, she did neither of those and just found herself quietly walking closer towards her and crouching down besides her, lightly rubbing her back trying to calm her down. She had no idea whether it would actually work, but after thinking about it for a while she just did what would comfort her if she was upset. If anyone were to pat her head lightly, or rub her back when she was upset it would definitely make her feel at ease. She just had to hope that Shinatobe felt the same way.

"I don't want to go back tomorrow," she heard Shinatobe's muffled voice. "I can't fight."

Although Himeko wanted to tell her that she was wrong, she chose not to. It would be hypocritical if she did because although she was confident in her own abilities too at first, she couldn't lift her sword against anyone until Hideaki had a little talk with her. She had to be reminded that her nickname was Kou for her to even stop thinking so negatively. Even though she had fought before, she found it hard to get into battle so she didn't even want to know what Shinatobe had to go through.

"Oh there you are," hearing a young man's voice, Himeko looked up to see Hiroshi coming towards them. Shinatobe didn't bother to look up knowing who it was. "You had me worried there when you suddenly ran off like that."

Himeko raised a brow, _"Ran off? D__o these two think they are the protagonists of a cheesy love drama or something?"_

Since no one ever listens to what Shinatobe says; Hiroshi included; he did the exact opposite and sat down in front of her waiting for her to say something. Shinatobe on the other hand refused to lift her head until Hiroshi went away. Meanwhile, Himeko sat awkwardly between the two.

"Just so you know, I'm not planning on leaving any time soon," Hiroshi informed her.

"Suit yourself then and sit," Shinatobe replied in a stubborn tone.

"You were amazing today, thanks to you a lot of our injured men are perfectly fine now."

"All I did was grind up some medicinal herbs, please don't boast about that."

"But the ointments you made worked wonders, and even that bitter grass you used to make tea with. It gave my men a lot more strength to keep fighting." Hiroshi smiled genuinely. "Please, won't you join me tomorrow as well?"

Himeko felt a little dumbfounded by this point. She was obviously right there, stuck in between the pair yet they pretended like she wasn't even there._ "The nerve of these two, they are flirting right in front of me. Not even in front of me, but with me in between them. Just because you two are in love doesn't mean you have to show off. Just you watch, 500 years from now I'll find my soulmate and make a better couple than both of you so let's see which one of us has the last laugh!"_

Feeling a burning gaze on him, Hiroshi turned to see Himeko right next to him and finally noticed her. "Oh, you are the little girl that looks just like our Hyeri."

_"I've got a name damn it!"_

"I apologise, I didn't see you there."

_"Cause you were too busy flirting you dickhead. Wow, I just swore at one of the Inoue clan's most respected leaders but then again he deserves it for not noticing me."_

"I'll have to go now, so please take care of your sister while I'm gone." Hiroshi said, standing back up. "I reassure you that I will protect her during the upcoming battles!"

_"Yeah, yeah, just get lost already so I can talk to her in private!"_

Once he was gone, Shinatobe finally raised her head and looked around to make sure that he was really not around anymore.

"What am I going to do, Himeko?" Shinatobe mumbled in a disheartened tone.

Himeko seriously didn't know how to answer her question. Judging from what Hiroshi had just told her, Shinatobe didn't seem like she fought at all. Knowing her, she probably spent her day looking after the sick. That's when she remembered the ointment Shinatobe started to prepare for her when they first met. She seemed like she really knew a lot about wild plants especially after Hiroshi praised her. In contrast to him, all Hideaki did all day was lecture Himeko on how to become a better fighter and also a better individual overall much to her annoyance.

It was time for Himeko to lift up the mood, "I suggest that you should take a shower first. You stink!"

Hearing her rude remark, Shinatobe quickly turned her head towards Himeko before she started talking little sniffs trying to check whether it was actually true. Although Himeko was only joking, she was actually right in fact as both girls spent a whole day sweating in the humid conditions of the war zone. It didn't take long for Shinatobe to return the rude remark, "You actually smell really bad too..."

"There is a lake nearby so why don't we go and wash ourselves. Our clothes got quite dirty too so I suggest we wash them since that Ito bastard certainly isn't going to get a maid to wash it for us."

Shinatobe just sighed, "Himeko, you use too many foul words..."

"Come on, our clothes aren't going to wash themselves you know. Although I wish that were the case."

...

The girls found themselves a nearby spot at the lake well away from both the troops. It was dark, so they were sure that no one would see them bathe, but since it was night the water was freezing. Shinatobe was quite used to bathing in cold water but Himeko couldn't stop shivering. Although they were quiet at the start, they quickly found themselves talk about how their day went by. Even though Shinatobe didn't seem to set on talking about how her experience way, Himeko told her the more comedic incidents.

"You see, my horse started showing me so much attitude!" She told, while Shinatobe was listening to her story with a smile plastered on her face. "It actually kicked me off three times... or was it four?"

Shinatobe laughed, "Is that so?"

"Yes, and it got away before I could get my revenge. I'll settle my score tomorrow by throwing it off into the river. Then we'll see who needs who's help."

Shinatobe couldn't help but be amused by Himeko's childishness. Since she acted really mature since the day they met, Shinatobe quickly forgot the fact that Himeko was just a child; younger than her brother whom she still considered a baby. It actually made her feel relieved seeing Himeko act her age now and then, knowing that wherever Himeko came from, she still led a positive life over there although her maturity sometimes did tend to worry her.

"So, how is Hiroshi?" Himeko asked after she was tired of talking about herself.

Shinatobe choked on her own spit after hearing her question. "I don't know what you mean."

"Don't act dumb, the air practically reeks of love when you two are together. Are his troops taking the same side as yours?"

"Yes, I started to panic when we first got there but Hiroshi-dono managed to find me and somehow managed to calm me down. He told me that I didn't need to overexert myself if I didn't want to fight, so he just told me to help out in the tents."

"Wow, he is practically the opposite of his eldest brother!"

"You mean Hideaki-dono?"

"Yeah, him!" Himeko nodded. "He was all like _'if you are going to stay here, then pay attention'_. Does he think he's some kind of big shot?"

Shinatobe blinked a couple of times, before she burst out laughing at Himeko's accurate impression of Hideaki. "You sound just like Hideaki-dono!"

"Well, I've heard him talk for a whole day so I wouldn't be surprised about it."

It was a nice change from earlier for Himeko. Shinatobe finally seemed to have the horrible sights she had seen out of her mind and was able to relax, but hearing Shinatobe talk so highly of Hiroshi made her heart sink a little. After all, Himeko knew too well that it was taboo for Inoues to marry anyone other than their own kind. The prove that there was no mix up in the past was Himeko's appearance itself. Her features were pretty much identical to the members of her clan that lived centuries ago. In one way or another, the fortune teller was right. Shinatobe's love won't progress further than the admiration they have for each other and she could only imagine how hard it must have been for Hiroshi to know this and still have developed feelings for Shinatobe. Shinatobe on the other hand still didn't know about this, and Himeko decided to not to tell her.

"What about you Himeko? You must have some friends too, right?"

"Well yeah," Himeko nodded before she started to think how she was going to describe everyone's personalities. "There is a much younger male version of you, a mean silver haired kid who makes it his mission to annoy the living shit out of me, a prince charming who pretty much tries to isolate himself from us but fails since the rest of us just live to stick our noses in other people's business, a perverted old man who thinks he is the boss of us just because he is the oldest, a bad tempered teen who believes that being cold and asshole like is the new shit, a psychologically disturbed teen who beats the living crap out of me everyday during training and finally an overly attached creep who thinks he is my older brother. That's pretty much it!"

...

Back in Himeko's time frame, Gon, Killua, Kurapika, Leorio, Toshiro, Natsume and Haruko all felt an ice cold shiver run down their spines.

_"Someone must be insulting me,"_ they all thought before returning to whatever they were previously doing.

...

"You are acquaintant to some interesting people," Shinatobe commented after closing her wide opened mouth. "Are you perhaps romantically involved with anyone?"

"I pretty much have a long line of men wanting to woo me."

Shinatobe was surprised, "Really?"

"Nope, that was a joke!" Himeko replied, although Shinatobe did not laugh at her tasteless joke. "Besides, it's about time for us to get out. The mosquitos here seem to like my blood and we have to get up early tomorrow."

"Right, let's step out!"

After dropping Shinatobe off at her own base, Himeko returned to the base she belonged to and coincidentally ran into Ito on the way to the tent she was assigned to.

"I heard you guarded the entire tent all by yourself for my men," he started off. "Hideaki-dono also said you were quite promising, however although they spoke highly of you I expected more. Your performance today disappointed me."

"I understand, I also thought that I didn't do my best today. I will hold my end of the deal just like I promised to."

"I'm quite surprised that you aren't talking back to me."

"I'm not, simply because I always stand by my words."

Ito smiled, "That's exactly what I wanted to hear. Be prepared to wake up early tomorrow morning. You will have to help prepare the meals before going out to battle."

"Right!" Himeko nodded, quietly making her way to her tent.

For the next couple of weeks, Himeko held her end of the deal to work hard cleaning and cooking at their troop's base. It wasn't any different from what she did back at the dojo. Waking up, cleaning the dojo, making breakfast, eating and then training. She was pretty much used to it already so it didn't really bother her as much. Although she was told to do the chores, the men in her troops started treating her with a lot more respect as the days went by seeing how hard she worked. Not only that, they also started to see how strong she was after seeing her perform in battle under Hideaki's guidance. For someone who wasn't able to use Nen, his swordsmanship was exceptional. His techniques and movements, they flowed just like water. Physically Himeko was a lot stronger, but Hideaki was a lot more experienced and skilled. She was able to pick up a lot from him.

Shinatobe was told to do the same at Miyamoto's base. Unlike Himeko though, she actually enjoyed doing the chores and didn't just do them for the sake of doing chores. No matter how hard Himeko tried to train her, Shinatobe refused to fight and Himeko just couldn't force her any further than that. While Hideaki mentored Himeko, Hiroshi watched over Shinatobe, making sure that she doesn't get hurt. He also decided to excuse her from battle knowing that she couldn't handle the tension. Either way, Shinatobe worked hard to aid the injured instead. Himeko thought that it was a waste of talent since Shinatobe's talent was one in a million, but nonetheless, Shinatobe seemed to enjoy helping people more than hurting them. It was a shame since she had potential, but there are some people in the world that think of their gift as a curse and Shinatobe just happened to be one of those people.

Although the two of them were doing completely different things, it didn't take long for them to get noticed by the troop leaders who eventually grew quite fond of of both Himeko's determination to become stronger and Shinatobe's willingness to aid the ones in need.

"Himeko, what is the status report from yesterday?" Ito asked.

"From our troop, one hundred and twenty four people were severely injured, three hundred and seventy two had minor injuries while six men died in battle. However the death rate decreased drastically during the last two weeks after we got back up troops from Jappon. Along with that, most of the newcomers have started to get the hang of swordsmanship and have improved after giving them compulsory training sessions like I suggested."

"What about your group of men in Division one?"

"There are round about twenty-four people with minor injuries and one that was severely injured two days ago."

"The total number of men?"

"Four hundred and sixty seven to be exact," she answered. "The storm three days ago flooded the whole of the western area, making it impossible to fight there so my group will be heading north along with group four, six and seven today. Once again we will be joined by four of Hideaki-dono's groups."

Ito rubbed his temples, trying to process everything Himeko had just told him. His troop decided to make changes in the way they operated things, dividing the men up in further divisions with one person leading each of them. Since one troop all together consisted of around two thousand men, it was easier to manage them in smaller divisions. Being one of the more skilled members, Himeko was assigned one group to handle although she despised the responsibility given to her. She'd rather spend the time she used to train them to train herself, but then again there wasn't much she could do about it all. The fact that she was quite smart also made Ito give her the position as not many people in their period were educated.

There was one thing that was always lingering around on her mind though. It had been a little over a month now and she still hasn't returned home and neither did she get any clues on how to get back home. She didn't want to admit it, but somehow she had lost hope to whether she would actually get back home. She might just continue to live the rest of her life in Yeddo while all of her friends search for her missing body. The thought of that just made her sigh, not knowing what else she could do about it. She stepped out of Ito's tent and made her way towards division one; the division she was in charge of and was greeted with utmost respect as everyone rose as soon as she entered.

"Himeko-dono, how did the talk with Ito-dono fare?" One of the men asked curiously. Once again, Himeko just sighed at the fact that she had to do all this and stepped to the front.

"Listen up, I'm only going to say this once so if you miss it then tough luck!" She started off. "Due to the flooding in the west, we will head north today along with divisions four, six and seven. As per usual, we will be getting help from Hideaki's troops. If you do have any questions, then please _don't_ ask me."

Although she told them not to ask her any questions, one of the men still put his hand up. "What about the injured?"

"Seriously, I told you not to ask me any questions." She groaned in annoyance before deciding to answer it. "Only one of them has a severe injury and would require some time to heal while the others have minor scars. They will be able to join us in three days. Does anyone else want to defy my orders by asking me a question?"

The men looked around the area to see whether anyone else put their hand up.

"Great, now eat you meal, wash up, go take a dump and do whatever you need to do. In fifteen minutes I need everyone back here ready to swing some swords around. Did I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir!"

As soon as she finished talking, they all rushed out to finish their business in the next fifteen minute time limit. _"Look at them go, buzzing around like a bunch of flies..."_

Himeko then also left the tent, needing to eat breakfast herself.

Over at Miyamoto's base, Shinatobe was also busy teaching some of the treatment team how to make some ointments using medicinal herbs.

"You have to look out for this one since they look a lot like stinging nettles. If you look closely though, you can see that the leaves of this herb are a lot smaller than the ones of a stinging nettle." She explained, holding up the said her. Her pupils analysed the small leaves, trying to remember how they looked like for future use. "Aloe can be used to treat burns, but if you make a paste out of this plant and add some aloe gel to it, the cooling effects will be a lot better than the ones of aloe gel alone."

"Hag, you in here?"

Shinatobe's lesson was interrupted by Himeko who entered with a bowl of food. Her students were quite used to Himeko visiting during lessons, so they weren't surprised at all. They would have been a lot more surprised if she didn't come over one day. Himeko walked in and sat next to Shinatobe, but Shinatobe continued to talk about the herbs she collected to show everyone. Himeko decided to listen while eating as she had nothing better to do.

Her students were certainly interested in the wide range of herbs she was using, but all Himeko could process was 'You put some of this green stuff in this stone thingy, add some of this green stuff, a bit of this slightly different looking green stuff and top it of with the light green stuff. Then you just mix that shit together and viola, you have some messed up green shit to rub all over your body.' Well, close enough! At least she tried making sense of it.

After her fifteen minutes were up though, Himeko quietly left the tent to go back to train her division. Since they were a lot busier now, Shinatobe and Himeko hardly had time to see each other like they did before but nonetheless they still spend their free time together, even if it's just five to ten minutes in the mornings and at night.

After parting ways, the day followed with Himeko starting to train her division, keeping a hawk eye out for anyone who decided to slack off although at this point, no one dared to do so. Shinatobe continued to teach her students how to make basic oils and ointments for application on wounds. Then as usual, they started to move out in their respective troops to fight, returning hours later just liked they did for the previous weeks.

However once they were back that night, unlike the other days where Himeko was the one who had to visit Shinatobe, this time it was the other way around. Not only was she on the look out for Himeko, but the normally half asleep Shinatobe was fully awake and somehow very excited having something very important to say.

"Himeko!" She waved after she saw Himeko returning from the horse stall. She was trying to contain her excitement. "Himeko, quickly. I need to tell you something."

"What's up, you usually don't come and visit." Himeko noticed that she was a lot more jumpy than usual.

"They said that I can go and visit Shinichi for a day because I've been doing so well the past few weeks. Isn't that great?"

Himeko smiled, "It's great to hear, you really wanted to see how he was doing for quite a while as well."

"I asked Miyamoto-dono whether you could come too, and he said that he'll have a word with Ito-dono about it."

Hearing this, Himeko exhaled loudly. "Unfortunately, I have way too much responsibility on my shoulders to just abandon and come along. There are over four hundred men in my division, and they all need someone to guide them."

"Can't you just come along for a day?" Shinatobe asked again, hoping she could change her mind. However, Himeko stuck with her answer.

"Sorry about that. I didn't really want to do this job but I can't slack off after being assigned it either. You'll have to go by yourself."

Shinatobe frowned, "That's a shame, I really wanted to go together since we don't get to talk much because of all this."

"I'll come along next time, but do greet your brother from me. You should get going, it's quite late and don't you want to go back early so you can spend more time in your town?"

"You're right!" Shinatobe explained. "Please stay safe tomorrow!"

_"I should be the one telling you to stay safe..."_

Shinatobe was getting ready to leave and head back with slight disappointment, "I'll be going then. Good night."

Himeko watched her leave before returning to her own tent, "Night."

* * *

**A/n -** This took so long to type up and edit and also, this arc will unfortunately be concluded in the next chapter. Any guesses on what might happen? Let's see, I was eating cookies while writing this chapter so I'll give the person who gets the closest answer the last cookie. I'll try to throw it really far to where they live xD

no, just kidding.

Might do an honourable mention or something along those lines. I suck at coming up these things, so if you do decide leave your guesses in the review section you can just ask me for what you want. P.s I'm broke! But the cookie offer still counts. I'll try to throw it really far, but it would probably just end up in my neighbours backyard. They were never happy when we kicked our balls over, so I doubt they'd enjoy finding a choco chip cookie lying around in their previous flower bed lol. But it would be hilarious if I did and they come to complain and say "Your children are throwing cookies over the fence too now!" xD. Ah, I'm so tempted to piss them off since they always piss me off!

**Well, on to the reviews.**

**xhunterxhunterx -** I forgive you for having so many x's in your username xD. Thanks, I had fun on the trip! The battle was kinda lame since I didn't know how to write war scenes but I tried my best. And thank you for the belated birthday wishes :D

**Haine -** I would love to know your theory of what the relationship between Shinatobe and Himeko is! It's fun reading theories by fans when you know what's actually going to happen next. Thank you for the belated birthday wishes, and yay we are the same age ^^

**Queechi -** We all know Himeko takes weird to another level but no, she doesn't have a thing for them. She just admitted that her ancestors were very hot. Another thing to be proud of in her opinion xD

**SlightlyYandereMelissa -** Don't worry, I didn't purposely ignore your review until the end. Just, the reply was going to be long so yeah I left it till the end. Thank you for your belated wishes first of all and I hope you did well on your exams. ^^ My results don't come back until august and I'm already freaking out :(

Is it really easy to come up with names? Well, yes for me since I have a reason why I give my OCs a certain name. Prepare to let your minds kinda get blown! I personally think of myself as a genius but then again, that's just me xD

I pretty much explained Himeko's name in this chapter, and since you all know what kind of clan the Inoues are you might have figured out that Hime is meant to describe her status in the clan.

Hakuryuu \- Haku means white and ryuu/ryu means dragon. Again it kinda goes with his clans position as he was meant to be the next head of the clan and dragons symbolise strength. You can make the link!

Inoue is a family name meaning either 'well off' or 'above everyone else' so yeah since they are a noble bloodline I'll let you make the link here too.

Ryosuke (Hakuryuu's partner in crime)- Can't remember what his name means exactly but Himeko sometimes mispronounces it as Ryusuke. Ryuu/ryu once again means dragon so she is kinda linking him with her brother unintentionally, hence the irony. This isn't mentioned in the story yet but I did mention that both Ryosuke and Hakuryuu are part of a criminal organisation and the term dragon is associated with that said organisation.

Now on to the boys from the dojo who are all associated with a season and personality traits we associate with those seasons.

Natsume \- Natsu means summer and it represents his energetic attitude

Haruko \- Haru means spring which is usually the start of warmth (In most countries, not in the UK though). Represents his kindness.

Toshiro \- Shiro means white so it's supposed to symbolise snow in winter. Could also associate with his (trying to be) cool personality.

Now some of you might be thinking that I'm an idiot but I do know that there are four seasons. Want to know what happened to Autumn? Find out at some point in the future ;)

Hanako and Hakuren sound like Himeko and Hakuryuu and those two were meant to be reflections of how Himeko and Hakuryuu could have turned out to be if the clan were still alive.

The other Inoue clan members were all just names that started with H to be honest although for the youngest Hiroshi, I picked that name since it sounded like Hero and the clan thinks of him as one.

Shinatobe's name choice will become explained next chapter if you'd like. You can Google it if you want to spoil it for yourself but it won't really make much sense on its own anyway.

* * *

I would really like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who reads this story. I admit, I wasn't really that serious about it back when I started it in december but once I realised that so many people are reading this (more than I initially thought), I started to put more effort into this. So thank you all, reviewers, favoriters, followers and even the silent readers because you all motivate me to come up with better stuff. I'll work hard and I'll try not to disappoint anyone. That aside, you guys really helped me improve my writing too. I don't know what I did before I started writing fanfics but gawd, my writing was horrible :/

Peace out people x.


	41. Shinatsuhiko

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 41**

_Shinatsuhiko_

_..._

The next morning Shinatobe left her base before sunrise to head for her village by the mountain. An hour later, everyone else woke up to go ahead with the day. The troops fighting in the morning left, and troops that were supposed to fight in the afternoon started to prepare for the day. They went ahead with their day and when it was finally afternoon, Himeko led her division towards north to fight along with the other divisions that joined them on their way there. No one could tell for sure how long they fought, but once they were done the sun had already set and they took the journey back to their bases.

Back at their base, the injured men were treated while the division leaders all assembled in Ito's tent to give their usual status daily reports. He started to call them out one by one.

"Division one."

"Fifteen with minor injuries and four with severe injuries."

"Division two."

"Three deaths, seventeen minor and twelve severe."

"Division three."

"One death and twenty four minor injuries."

"Division four."

"Twenty minor injuries and two severe."

"Division five."

"Forty minor injuries."

"Division six."

"One death, twenty seven minor injuries and one severe injury."

"Division seven."

"Two deaths, eighteen minor injuries and five severe injuries."

After he was done calling every division out, he sighed in frustration. "I left you seven in charge of the divisions and gave you the responsibility to watch over them. In battle, death is inevitable which I admit but we also have to be prepared to handle everything we are faced with. Our troop consists of around three thousand men on estimate and you all have round about four hundred men in your divisions. If you all end up losing one man on average per day, this whole troop will be gone in over a years time. We can't keep losing soldiers like this and keep relying on backup. Don't you men have any pride in your own country that you keep relying on help from other countries?"

Himeko too was standing there in line with a straight face while they get scolded by Ito. They all kept quiet until one of them got the courage to speak up on everyone else's behalf.

"What do you suggest we do, Ito-dono?" The leader of division two asked.

Ito slammed his table, startling all of them. "I don't care what you do, you have to find a way to cut the death toll and severe injuries completely. Did I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir!"

"You seven will stay here until I hear a suggestion. We can't let this problem go on for any longer."

"Right!"

Until very early morning, Ito kept the division leaders inside to discuss future strategies and ways to prevent further deaths during the upcoming battles. None of them could afford to lose any more men than they already did and according to Ito, it was embarrassing for their country to rely on more backup troops from their neighbouring countries. However, even after trying to think for two hours, none of them could think of a way to improve the troop than they already were. They knew the way they ran their troop wasn't perfect, but they couldn't find a way to improve it either.

"Himeko-dono, do you perhaps have a suggestion?" Ito asked, noticing that she was a lot quieter than usual. All she wanted to do was go to bed. No one was actually contributing any useful ideas and she had already given them her best idea weeks ago.

Himeko shook her head, "Unfortunately, I'm already training my division to the best of my abilities and we already have a lot of men to take care of the injured. I honestly can't think of anything else." He had hoped for an idea from her, mainly because the idea of training the newcomers was originally hers after noticing that she did the same although she was a lot stronger than even the veterans. "It depends on how fast everyone learns. We can't ignore the fact that they have to fight endless hours each day so they will be under both physical and mental stress. We are already providing them with everything they need apart from one thing; a break. But if we were to give them a break then it would waste training time."

"Why can't we let Himeko-dono fight right in the centre?" The leader of the fourth division questioned. "I've seen her use a really powerful attack once that wiped all her enemies out in one go. Besides, I've never seen her severely injured let alone have minor injuries."

_"That doesn't exactly mean I'm invincible..."_ Himeko thought. "I'm not exactly as strong as you all think I am. Those abilities I can only use around fifteen times at once depending on my surroundings and I can't predict the direction it will go in. I can accidentally kill our own men in the process."

The third division leader put his hand up for everyone to quieten down so he could speak. "In that case, shouldn't we just send Himeko-dono alone to take care of one area. She could only hit our own men if there were any, if she were to take care of one area alone then she wouldn't have to worry about hitting anyone from our side."

"That's absurd!" The leader of division seven cut it. "She might be strong, but we are forgetting the fact that she is still a child. She doesn't have the right mentality to be given such a big responsibility, I've seen the way she fought during her first day. She couldn't move until Hideaki-dono gave her the right guidance."

"That was more than one and a half months ago. Not only is she willing to cut down anyone in her way now, but she has also improved her swordsmanship with Hideaki-dono. You are greatly underestimating her." Leader of division five protested.

However, while everyone was busy talking no one actually considered to ask Himeko for her own opinion and whether she was able to take on that many people at once. She was trying to find a good point to interrupt everyone and tell them that she's unable to take on around one thousand men all at once, but she just couldn't find a way to tell them as they were too busy barking at each other like a horde of dogs. Ito was carefully watching all the division leaders, Himeko included.

"As a samurai, she should be taking decisions for herself!" He stopped the men having their heated argument before turning to Himeko-dono. "The choice is yours, no one can force you on what to do."

Finally given the opinion to voice her opinion, she started telling them that she won't do it. "I'm una-"

But Ito cut in, reminding her of one important thing. "You should remember that in this war, the safety of our civilians matters most. As a division leader, you should make sure that the men under you stay safe. That is your responsibility."

Himeko was wrong, Ito wasn't trying to give her a chance to voice her opinion. He was just trying to pressurise her into saying yes with her own mouth. She didn't know what to do anymore. Her shoulders just started to feel extremely heavy all of the sudden and her mind went blank for a split second before she could even proceed to think what would happen if she didn't do what they said. Another one hundred men could be severely injured and unable to fight in future battles. There would be more deaths and also, more work for the medical team.

"I'll do it," she muttered quietly, only loud enough for them to hear.

Ito's lips curved upwards, "That's the response I expected."

He took out a map of the area and used a compass to draw a circle, marking the section he wanted her to control. "This is generally the windiest place, and since you can use your ability more in places with more wind you can be in charge of this area right here." Himeko took a good look at the map in front of them. "I suggest you leave at sunrise and we'll send backup at night for you to rest."

_"Until night? They want me to fight for the whole day."_

"We will try whether it works out for the day, and if it does we can send her into more populated areas."

Himeko quietly listened until Ito dismissed everyone to go back. She felt used, these men stayed quiet until someone suggested sending her in by herself and after the suggestion, she saw that they all started to agree trying to push her in and put all the weight on her shoulders and trying to stay out of the battle as much as possible. She scoffed, watching them all leave after the meet up. After looking back at Ito, she left the tent as well.

_"Just watch, once I'm back in my time I'll get a group of dogs to piss all over your graves. That should teach you all a lesson to never mess with me!"_

Although she tried to vent her momentary anger by cursing at them in her head, she couldn't do anything else. Walking out of the tent, she looked up at the sky. There wasn't much time left until sunrise; maybe an hour or two if she was lucky enough. Over the past couple of weeks she hadn't gotten enough sleep to begin with, and she knew that she would break down eventually if this went on for much longer. It was a gamble not knowing when she would break down and she could just hope for the best. Not putting any more thought to it, Himeko fell asleep. She could wake up and think about how she was going to cope for the day. But for now, she just needed as much rest as she could possibly get.

Two hours later, she woke up and got ready to leave. Ito pointed at the direction she would have to travel to and after getting her trusty horse she liked to call _'Himeko's loyal Servant number one', _she set off early that dawn.

Now that she had to go all alone, she didn't know what to do. She just hoped that she would be able to last the whole day without fainting and just the thought of having to last that long by herself made her a lot more restless than she already was. While _'Himeko's loyal servant number one'_ was taking her to the site, she used the opportunity to think of a strategy. Unlike the soldiers that were in a lower rank, Ito didn't provide the division leaders with strategies as he would expect them to do that themselves. However, all she was told to do was to fight over a thousand soldiers for the whole day. Even if she was given the windiest area on the map, it didn't change the fact that her _Hatsu_ was limited. She could use it a couple of times more than her average which was fifteen times, but other than that she couldn't do anything else about it.

_"I could just use my swords to fight once I've reached my limit and wait for my body to recharge,"_ she thought. But then, she came across another tall brick to climb over. _"If I reached my limit for Hatsu, then I won't be able to use my Shu for long after that either. In that case I'd just have to avoid using Nen all together for a while but it would take much longer for me to take out opponents without Nen."_

After putting some careful thought into it, she calculated that if she was able to use seventeen aerodiscs in one go, it would take her a little under half an hour to finish using them all leaving her with around half an hour recharging time. Considering that she would be able to use some _Nen_ after reaching her limit with _Hatsu_, she could use _Shu_ for another half an hour or so. However, that would only slow down her recharging time, so she was wondering whether it was actually worth it in the first place. The more she thought about it, the more she just kept going around in circles. In the end, she decided to go in with a half assed plan, hoping she could just figure something out along the way, but deep inside she doubted it. After all, she didn't even think that she had enough energy to keep her going throughout the day let alone have spare energy to use for coming up with a plan on the spot. All she could do now was be satisfied with her unfinished plan, go with her instincts and hope for the best.

Once _'Himeko's loyal servant number one' _stopped all of the sudden and neighed out loudly, she knew that she had arrived at the site. The previous exhausted batch of soldiers had high hopes seeing her arrive but wondered where the rest of their backup army was. Although they knew she was the leader of division one, they couldn't imagine her slaying all these men by herself. It would be too hard to imagine as it took thousands of men to even hold them up. What difference could just one girl make? But once she got off the horse ready to fight, they knew it was real.

"I'm the backup army for today!" She announced. "You should all leave and prepare for the next battle. Remember to take care on the way and keep the injured safe!"

Although the men blinked a couple of times wondering whether she was actually being serious about all this, they quickly came to the realisation that it was and got ready to leave with the injured men back to their bases.

"Quick, leave this place!" She ordered. "Make sure to take the injured out of here first and take good care of them."

"Yes, ma'am!" They all shouted back.

Himeko grinned to herself, _"I could get used to this royal treatment!" _She left her trusty horse behind and stepped forward. "Listen up, anyone who is still able to fight stay behind with me and hold up the enemy until the injured are out of here. Once they are out, I will create an opportunity for the rest to join them."

A handful of the stronger fighters stood in a line with Himeko looking ahead.

"We are outnumbered," one of the men pointed out the obvious.

"It doesn't matter!" Himeko replied. "We don't need to fight them, we just have to hold them up until our men are a safe distance away from here. For now, we just need to block them. If they resist, I'll take care of them!"

"They are charging at us!"

"Stay on guard, don't back down!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Stay where you are, don't step forward until I'm done."

"Yes, ma'am."

_"Just wait for them to get closer. Closer. Closer." _she kept an eye on the countless of men charging at them until they were close enough, waiting for the right opportunity to attack. "Heaven's judgement number one: Aeroblast."

The men by Himeko's side stood firmly on the muddy ground, trying not to get blown away with their enemy. Although the men that ran up to them were a long distance away from them now, it didn't stop them from keeping a look out with hawk eyes for anyone that would come to attack them. Himeko kept looking back and forth, trying to see whether their own troops were far away enough for the remaining men to join. Once there were out of sight, she ordered them to go, "I'll handle the rest. Try to catch up to the ones that have just gone and stick together. Keep them safe until they get back to our base! Take my horse along too."

She kept using her attack to keep the enemy away until the men were up on their horses and left. Their presence was gone, and now it was time for her to take control of the area she was in. She drew both of her swords and ran into the center of the battle, clashing swords and cutting anyone and anything that came in her way in the process. Once she got to the middle, she started charging her attack.

"Heaven's judgement number two: Aerodisc."

Like usual, she kept an eye on the disc taking down its victims one by one while using her swords to fight the opponents that were in a closer range.

_"If I take out everyone here before night time then maybe I can get a bit of a rest until tonight's troops come to take over." _She thought to herself. But whether or not she'll be able to take them out before then wasn't certain. There were countless of soldiers, and it seemed like there was no end to them although she kept cutting them down. Compared to her slicing the enemy using her swords, her _Hatsu_ ability did a much better job at taking out more than one person at a time. When she looked back at where the disc was, she saw it taking it's usual U-turn and heading straight back towards her. But that's when she thought of something.

She dodged.

Instead of using her aeroblast to destroy the disc, she simply dodged it causing it to keep going as it was getting bigger and bigger every second. The wind was strong like Ito predicted which she used as her advantage.

_"It shouldn't be able to stop until I stop it myself,"_ she thought, watching it go. _"All I have to do now is keep an eye on it."_

Once the disc was about to go out of range, she shot another one of her discs with the purpose of hitting the first one so it curved back towards the more densely populated area.

_"At least now I can keep using them as long as I keep dodging."_

She kept going like this for hours, creating new discs once in a while to stop the old ones from going out of range. While those got rid of the soldiers from a longer distance, she used her swords to cut down men who were in a much closer distance. She was eventually starting to see a decrease in the number of enemy around and hoped that there was finally going to be an end to them all.

Finally, she had come down to the last two men standing, "Take this!"

Watching the two men fall before her, she started huffing due to exertion now that it was finally all over for her. However, once they were down she didn't have any more strength to stay up on her feet anymore. She finally let go of her swords and collapsed onto her knees. She looked at her dirty hands still trembling from tightly gripping her swords for too long and saw red blisters forming on them. She had gone on for hours after all without a break, going beyond her limit and fighting god knows how many soldiers including a backup troop that arrived hours after she started. Hoping to finally catch her breath, she fell back and looked up at the sky trying to figure out what time it was. The sky was slightly orange by then, ensuring her that it will be all over in a while. She just had to hang on for a couple of hours until someone sends her backup.

"Two hours maybe?" She thought out loud. _"I was able to last for this long, I can keep for two more hours. That's one hundred and twenty minutes, seven thousand two hundred seconds, seven million and two hundred thousand milliseconds. Now that I think about it, that is a really long time I still have left." _She rolled over in the puddle of blood she was lying in. _"Maybe I should start singing. The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round, the wheels on the bus go round and round, all day long~" _But that was when she realised_. "Hold on a second, buses didn't exist in this time period. I have to come up with different lyrics." _She looked around, but all she could see were the fresh corpses lying beside her._ "The flies on the corpses swarm round and round, round and round, round and round. The flies on the corpses swarm round and round, all day long~" _But somehow she started to sound a little sadistic.

She didn't really know what else to do now, she really wanted to go back home. No not to their base, but to the dojo but until she found a way to do so she had to stay there and somehow manage. It still bothered her that she had to kill so many people, but whenever she struggled to do so her ancestral grandfather's voice would tell her that they were out to kill her too. It somehow made her feel slightly less guilty than she was but she knew that she had to get used to it in order to become a better fighter. Although she wished for it to be so easy, she couldn't keep training inside the dojo. She had to fight real battles once in a while too.

She moved around in the puddles of blood, trying to get into a comfortable position to keep thinking, but then she felt her cold clothing touch her skin. She immediately got back up, _"Shit, I completely forgot that I'm lying in blood." _She looked at the back of her sleeves to see it soaked in her victims blood. _"Great, now my clothes are soaked. What does it even matter now?"_ What's done is done, her back was soaking wet so it wouldn't make much difference if she lied back down again.

Once she was finally done calming down, she tried shutting her eyes for a while. Falling asleep amongst thousands of dead corpses seemed like a bad idea but it didn't really matter to her at that point. She needed some rest before she could go back to her base. But before she could even rest for a whole five minutes, she felt someone approaching her. Although she didn't think of it as much at first, she then noticed something strange. This person felt stronger than the ones she had fought. It didn't feel like someone familiar either.

She slowly opened her eyes and saw a man approach her from the distance. Before he could come any closer, so stumbled back on her feet and took a good look at the man coming towards her. Unlike the others' armours, his looked a lot more expensive. He must have been one of the higher ranked soldiers judging by his appearance. Using _Gyo_, she tried to examine him further. _"I knew it, it's a little faint but he can use Ten."_

Once he was face to face with her, he scoffed at her appearance, "_You_ did all this?"

_"He is stronger than everyone else," _she observed.

"Little lady, shouldn't you be at home helping your mother with the chores?" He mocked.

"Please, I've heard that too many times today. Don't you start too now," she complained in annoyance. "A friendly reminder, whether you like it or not but you actually came from a woman. Thinking about it like that, weren't it the women that actually built this nation you men take this much pride in. How about you try stopping the woman you sneer at, that is if you are able to still do that once I'm done with you."

Wasting no more time, Himeko drew her sheathed sword and cut him in half. Once her opponent was down, she used her sword to support her on her feet. He was able to use Nen, but not to the extent of Shinatobe's abilities. Not having anyone that could train him, his natural abilities had gone to waste due to his cockiness. Since she didn't want to stay there any longer and doubted that she could fight any more, she decided to walk back to her base. Before she started moving out though, she bit her hand, hoping the pain would keep her awake for a few hours until she got back. Using her sheathed sword as a walking stick, she started heading back.

A few hours later, Himeko was able to get back to her base. The sun had already gone down by the time she reached there as she was practically limping her way back. Her white uniform was completely soaked with red blood, leaving hardly any white spots behind. Her sword seemed dulled after being used so much and there were little cuts here and there on her skin. Hardly anyone expected her to return with so little injuries, while others were surprised that she even came back alive. She slowly made her way to Ito's tent, hearing whispers of men watching her walk past.

"Did you hear? She took on more than a thousand men all by herself. That's insane!"

"Who do you think she is, she is the leader of Division one."

"Could she be stronger than Ito-dono?"

"She's inhumanely strong, just like a demon."

_"I'm sorry but I'm a bit too tired to actually get happy hearing your compliments." _Himeko thought as she quietly kept walking past them until finally reaching Ito's tent. "I'm coming in!"

Recognising her voice, Ito greeted her as soon as she walked in. "Congratulations, you've made it. I've had my doubts but I guess I underestimated you."

"I don't want to hear your flattery. I came to let you know that I've got rid of the main troop that was already there, the back up troop and one of their troop leaders," she reported. "Now, if you'd excuse me. I'm done for today."

"Good work, you'll be taking the same area tomorrow."

Himeko stopped walking towards the exit and turned around, "Tomorrow?" She questioned, not believing her ears.

"Now that we know how good you are, it would be a shame to just let you fight for a mere couple of hours."

Not having any more strength to talk back, Himeko let out a loud sigh before walking back out. Not being able to talk back meant that she had to go in there tomorrow and do the same thing. In order to do so, she had to get some rest. But just as she walked out of Ito's tent she remembered something important; she didn't even belong in that time frame to begin with. Now that she kept getting caught up in these things, she didn't get much time to herself anymore. Gradually she started to think less and less about returning back home and it worried her that eventually she would completely forget about being from the twenty first century. If this were to go on, she would get too used to her current life style and maybe not even return.

While getting caught up in her own thoughts, she heard a voice. "Hyeri's look alike!"

From the moment she heard it, she knew exactly who the voice belonged to. She looked up and narrowed her eyes at him. _"Can I please slap this guy?"_ She asked in irritation. _"Once, just once. Please let me do it!"_

But once he spotted her, he hurried her way and stopped trying to catch his breath. Judging from his breathing, she could tell that he had been looking for her for quite some time now.

"Have you seen Shinatobe-dono?" He asked. "I haven't seen her all day, I thought you might know where she is."

"Shinatobe?" Himeko questioned. It's been nearly two days since she left to visit her brother, so Himeko thought that she'd be back by now. She just didn't have an opportunity to go and visit her as she was caught up in the war. "She went to visit her younger brother yesterday morning. She should have been back by yesterday night."

"She is not, I've searched Miyamoto-dono's base for her but she hasn't come back yet."

Himeko's eyes widened not knowing what to make of the news. Shinatobe was supposed to come back a day ago, but why wasn't she back yet? Did she get lost on her way back? It was very likely knowing what kind of scatterbrain Shinatobe was. Did she stay back not wanting to come back anymore? But then again Himeko wasn't so sure about that either. Shinatobe wasn't the kind of person to just ditch someone and leave them hanging in the middle of a war.

Hiroshi couldn't make out what she was thinking about. One thing was for sure though, he didn't want to waste any more time than he already has. Waiting for Himeko to return has already wasted enough of it. Still not hearing a reply from her and seeing her pokerface, he questioned her loyalty to Shinatobe. With no choice left, he got on his knees. "I know you just came back from battle, but please help me find her. I beg of you."

"Beg?" Himeko raised her brow in annoyance . "You are making me look like the bad person here. She's not just important to you, she's important to me as well."

"Then will you help me find her?"

"What kind of question is that?" Himeko yelled at him. "Get back on your feet, don't you have any pride?"

"You're right," he said as he got back up. "I apologise."

"Get a horse ready then, let's leave right now!"

"Right!" He nodded.

Without realising it themselves, the pair of them started to create quite a bit of commotion gathering unwanted attention towards themselves. Hearing a crowd talking nearby, Ito stepped out his tent to see the pair getting ready to set off somewhere without getting permission first.

"Himeko, where do you think you are going?" He asked loudly trying to gain their attention.

"I'll be back by tomorrow morning, I just have some business to do before then," Himeko replied.

Seeing that he wasn't yet convinced, Hiroshi decided to lend her a hand. "I just have to borrow my sister's look a like for a while. I'll make sure she returns before dawn."

Ito sighed, "Very well then. I can't refuse an Inoue."

_"I'm an Inoue and you still treat me like shit most of the time, you heartless son of a bitch!"_ Himeko narrowed her eyes at him, before sending over a glare to Hiroshi. "And I've got a name damn it!"

"Do you know where her village is?" Hiroshi asked, ignoring her sudden anger outburst.

"Not exactly, but it's beside the mountains." Himeko answered, thinking back. She wasn't the best when it came to directions, but at least she remembered what the area around the village looked like.

_"Mountains, huh?"_ Hiroshi thought. "I've got it, make sure to stick close to me!"

"Right!"

...

Setting off around midnight, it took both of them a while to get to the village. Although Hiroshi promised to bring Himeko back the next morning, that was obviously not going to happen. The sun was about to rise as the two made it to the shopping district and although the shops keepers were supposed to start opening up their business, there was no one around. The streets were deserted and shops were abandoned, almost like a ghost town. She clearly remembered this very district being busy when she last visited with Shinatobe nearly two months ago.

While Hiroshi remained, Himeko got off her horse and started to check whether at least one of the shops would be open. Shinatobe was quite well known in the village so the store owners would have known of her return. But no matter how many stores she checked, they were all closed. She let Hiroshi know before she continued to search the shops until finally, she came across a shop owner who was getting ready to leave.

"Sorry, but could you tell me where everyone is?" Himeko asked him. He turned around and didn't recognise Himeko or Hiroshi, concluding that they were probably outsiders.

"The whole village is gathering up by the shore this morning," the older man answered. "It's a pretty important event for us all."

"Which way is the shore?"

The elder pointed towards the mountain, "You will reach the shore if you keep travelling towards the mountain. The shore is right beside it."

"Thank you very much!"

The elder left after Himeko bowed, heading towards the shore to join whatever event the whole village was supposed to take part in that day. Himeko waited until he was out of sight before she returned to Hiroshi to let him know. By this point, Himeko had somehow calmed down a little. After all, Shinatobe was part of the village and if she was already there then the villagers could have just asked her to stay for another day to take part in the event.

She returned back to her horse and got on while Hiroshi was waiting for her to fill him in. "There is something going on at the shore today. All the villagers are gathered there."

"That means Shinatobe-dono should be there too, right?"

She nodded, "I thought so too. Shinatobe is part of the village anyway, so they could have just asked her to stay a little longer."

"You do have a point. Did you find out where the shore was?"

"It's by the mountain."

"That's not very far," Hiroshi pointed out, looking towards the mountain.

"We should check it out!"

While travelling down the district, Himeko was amazed by how empty the area was. She understood that it was an event for the whole village to take part in, but she was curious on what kind of event it could be this early in the morning. It wasn't exactly common in her time since everyone's too busy with their own lives. The unity between the villagers really made her feel like she was back in the Yeddo period.

Feeling a strong morning breeze, the pair knew they were getting closer to the shore. The sand being blown into their eyes and the salty air were signs that they were getting closer. Once they were by the shore, they got off their horses and started walking towards the crowd in the distance. There was quite a thick fog making it hard to make out much in the first place. Nonetheless, they kept walking towards the crowd in silence trying not to interrupt whatever was going on.

Himeko looked over at Hiroshi wondering whether he might actually have a clue on what might be happening, "Do you know what they might be doing?"

"I have no idea," he shrugged. "I thought you would know, aren't you Shinatobe-dono's sister?"

"Well, there is a really long story behind it." Himeko laughed nervously, being caught red handed. "Please give me some time to come up a good story though."

Although she was trying to lighten up the mood, Hiroshi didn't seem impressed by it. Not impressed was an understatement, you could say that it this was the first time Himeko's seen him mad. "So you aren't relate to her?"

She shook her head in response. "My name is Himeko I-" That was all she could say for some reason. Although she didn't mind telling him the truth at this point now that it didn't seem like she could go back home anytime soon, now that she wanted to tell him the truth she just couldn't. It was as if she just suddenly lost her voice when she tried to tell him her family name. _"Why can't I tell him my last name? I remember telling Shinatobe when we first met but it just won't come out now. Something smells fishy here, and it's definitely not the sea!"_

"So you two are strangers?" He asked again, in the same tone.

"You don't have to be related by blood to think of someone as a sibling," she objected. "Although I tend to deny it all the time but Shinatobe did look after me so don't assume that I'm just using her. She is just as important to me as she is to you, maybe even more. I might have lied to you but that doesn't mean that I was untruthful to Shinatobe."

For some reason, him questioning her loyalty to Shinatobe angered her. Sure, Himeko admitted herself that she wasn't the nicest person on the planet and neither did she want to earn that title. She usually acted indifferent to people she had just met, but you couldn't blame her; she just didn't trust strangers. Although Hiroshi and his brothers were her ancestors, to her it didn't matter. When she first met them, they were mere strangers too although they carried the title of being an Inoue. However, this didn't mean that she was truthful to the very little friends she had, Shinatobe included. Him doubting her friendship couldn't help but make her mad.

Now that they had both vented their anger, there was a brief silence between the two. The sea breeze helped to cool them down and all they could do at that moment of time was to wait for someone to say something. Both parties however remained quiet, waiting for the other to say something breaking this awkward silence. Although it wasn't exactly what they hoped for, the voice of a man in the distance diverted their attention and made them forget about their sudden outbursts.

The voice seemed to be coming from the group standing in the distance. Himeko tried her best to listen and make out the words he was saying, but it wasn't like anything she had heard before. What he was saying sounded like a foreign language to her, but at the same time she knew it couldn't have been one. She looked over at Hiroshi, hoping that he would have an idea on what was happening.

"He is chanting," he muttered.

"Chanting?"

"The voice must belong to a priest. I think they are doing a ritual."

_"That would explain why I didn't understand him."_

"But it doesn't make sense, it's pretty unusual to have a ritual at this time of year."

Not too soon after, the voices of the villagers could be heard too, praying and wishing for the war to come to an end so their families could continue living a peaceful life just like they used to.

"Let's see what's going on." Hiroshi said before he started walking off towards the large crowd gathered up in one area. Himeko didn't have a clue on what they were doing, but the fact that Hiroshi mentioned it being rare to have rituals at this time of year made her feel a bit uneasy. For now, she decided to stick close to Hiroshi and find out what was going on. But even after they've arrived, the villagers didn't pay much attention to them. They were too busy sending off their prayers, and neither off them could see what was going on at the front.

Being stuck at the back, Himeko tapped a woman on her back and waited for her to turn around. The fact that someone had interrupted her prayers annoyed her, but nonetheless she turned around and looked at the unfamiliar girl and boy who didn't belong in the village.

"May I ask what you are all doing?" Himeko asked in a hushed voice, trying not to interrupt anyone else.

The woman bent down until she was about her eye level and whispered back, "We are offering a sacrifice to the gods for the war to end," before she turned back around and continued praying.

Hiroshi who didn't hear what the woman whispered, waited for Himeko to relay the message to him. "Apparently they are offering a sacrifice to end the war."

"Did they say what kind of sacrifice it was?" He asked. "I hear that if you ask for something, you must sacrifice something that has equal value to it."

_"Equal value? So it can't be food they are offering,"_ she thought to herself. But now that she started thinking about it, she got a bad feeling in the gut. _"Something that has equal value to a war. It can't be, let's just hope I'm wrong." _She took in a deep breath to calm herself down before she looked for an opening to squeeze through the crowd. From the back they couldn't see a thing that was happening at the front and she was hoping that her gut feeling was wrong this time around. The people in the crowd were starting to get annoyed by the constant pushing so some started to push back making it hard for her to keep going.

Eventually, she reached the front and saw only the head priest who was still continuously chanting mantras. But when she looked forward and started squinting, she could make out a distant figure in the fog slowly floating away on a small, wooden boat. Once again, due to the fog she couldn't really pick out any distinctive features but she could see the figure of a woman with long, black hair dressed in white robes.

_"I'm sure, that's her!"_

But by the time she realised that the woman out on the sea was Shinatobe, it was already too late. She was too far out by then, but she still tried.

"Shinatobe," she called out. "Shinatobe!"

Although she went in deeper into the water to try to get closer, she had to stop once the water reached her shoulders. Nonetheless, she kept trying to call Shinatobe over and over again, but each time she got no response. She was already too far away so she couldn't hear her and neither could Himeko go in any deeper than she already was. _"Damn it, why don't I know how to swim?!"_

Concluding that it was pointless to try calling out any further, she turned back and looked at the villagers. None of them seemed to care about what they were doing, there wasn't even a bit of guilt or regret on anyone's faces. It was utterly disgusting.

"It is rude to interrupt a ritual," the head priest pointed out impatiently, waiting for her to finally step out of the water and stop shouting.

"You call this a ritual?" Himeko scoffed in reply. "This isn't a ritual, this is nonsense!"

"I'm going to ask you to stop interrupting us, we are making an offering to appease the gods."

"That is bullshit!" She cut in before he could continue. "If you want to make an offering, offer an apple, orange, grapes, why don't you just offer a whole entire apple tree while you are at it? But you don't have the right to do this to a human being, who gave you the right?"

Some of the villagers were getting irritated by her, "He is the head priest, he knows what's best for all of us."

"Head priest? So you are telling me that if I go and learn a couple of spells and tell you to go and jump off a cliff you will do it?"

"Yes, we will."

"Oh really?" She questioned. "Trust me, I've got a good memory. It won't take me long to do so. Are you sure that you are prepared to listen to each and every word if that were to happen?"

Not knowing how to reply, the villagers retreated. "This is different, Shinatobe wanted to do it."

"It's an honour to be chosen as the sacrifice." The head priest added. "She had a heaven's gift, so we are sending her back where she came from. Only she was worthy enough to be sent as an offering."

"She wanted to do it you say? And you didn't bother talking her out of it you bastards? Do you know how much she has done for you all? She went into war to fight for everyone here, she stayed there despite being frightened by the corpses that fell at her feet everyday and she cared for the injured and made sure to remain by their side at all times?" She went on to list the things Shinatobe did during the war, asking them whether they would have done the same thing if they were in her shoes. "Let me tell you one more thing, if it weren't for her then most of your relatives that went to fight in the war would have been long gone by now. I don't expect you to do anything for her in return but you know what, I at least would like you to be grateful for everything she has done!"

No matter how much Himeko spoke to them, the villagers remained unfazed. Whatever happened to Shinatobe didn't matter to them. After all, she didn't have parents or any family except for her younger brother. She didn't have anyone to stand up for her which is why it was easy for them to take advantage of her. No one cared for her, as long as they were safe it didn't matter what happened to anyone else. That was when Himeko suddenly remembered the old fortune teller's warning.

_'Don't let anyone take advantage of your kindness, Shinatobe._'

She knew for sure that they weren't going to help her, she had to figure out a way to get Shinatobe back herself. Her eyes quickly scanned through the crowd trying to find the only person that was on her side, only to find him devastated on the ground.

"Shinatobe," he muttered when she approached him. "She's gone. I won't be able to see her again."

"Snap out of it, we can still get her back if we try hard enough!" Himeko objected.

"What is the use in that, it won't work..."

The fact that the only person she could turn to was having a mental breakdown frustrated her. She couldn't swim, neither was there anything around that she could use to go out and get her back. Seeing the so called hero of her clan in this state truly irked her. She would have appreciated it if he at least tried something before giving up hope, but he gave up before he even did anything. They were people that she started to look up to; people who made her realise how great her heritage really was but they were a lot weaker than they first appeared. Physically they were strong, but mentally they were able to break down very quickly.

Hearing him muttering how hopeless it was to go after Shinatobe infuriated her. She wasn't beyond saving yet and he knew that very well. Although she had only joked about it until know, she started to clench her first wanting to punch him to snap him out of it. She slowly raised her hand against him and was aiming right for his face but instead of hitting him, her hand just went straight through, leaving her awestruck to what just happened. She continued, trying to shake him by his shoulders but that didn't work either, it was as if he was just an illusion; or in this case, she was the illusion.

She looked at her hands that were still visible to her. She wasn't gone yet, and neither did she start to disappear, "Why_ is this happening now?"_

She could try for a whole day, but she knew that she couldn't get through to him anymore. Now she was left alone, trying to find a way to help her. She looked around, trying to find a way to get closer and saw a nearby cliff. Leaving Hiroshi behind, she quickly ran towards the cliff trying to get closer hoping that Shinatobe would eventually hear her. Thankfully, the waves were calm early morning so Shinatobe's boat was going really slowly and somehow Himeko managed to catch up until the boat was right below the cliff she was on.

"Shinatobe!" She tried screaming. "Shinatobe, what do you think you are doing?!"

Seeing that she wasn't responding, Himeko tried to get a little closer standing right at the edge of the cliff carefully trying to balance herself. Himeko tried not to look down, the cliff was quite high up and the worst thing that could happen was her falling into the sea and drowning. Now she was absolutely sure that Shinatobe could hear her voice for that distance, but once she was about to open her mouth to call out her name, she just couldn't. Just like earlier when she couldn't tell Hiroshi her surname, she couldn't call out to her. It felt like her whole throat was blocked and she was unable to mutter even a sound, but in actuality there was nothing wrong with her throat and she knew it.

There wasn't much left that she could do, but she didn't want to let Shinatobe go like that either. She frantically looked around for a small rock, stick, or anything that she could throw to make Shinatobe turn around and look up. Anything would do at this moment of time and she crawled on the floor trying to search for something to give a signal. But the fact that her vision was getting blurry at this point didn't help her one bit. She used her dirty sleeve to try and wipe away the tears in her eyes, _"Damn it, why do I have to start crying now?"_

Once her vision became clearer, she finally found a rock lying around right in front of her. But when she returned to the edge of the cliff, she saw Shinatobe looking back up at her with a warm smile.

_"Thank you,_" she mouthed.

...

At the dojo, Haruko was sitting beside Himeko watching over her as she kept mumbling some words.

"Shinatobe, Shinatobe," she kept repeating, while regretful tears streamed down her face. "Why didn't I just go with her when she asked me to come?"

Seeing her in her current state broke his heart. While she was unconscious, Himeko would occasionally mumble words here and there, she would have anger outbursts and she would cry in frustration. He didn't have a clue on what was going on or what was happening to her, and if he did he would have wanted to help her out as much as he could. She had been like this for nearly two months now, but today she was crying a lot more than usual. Somehow it just worried him a lot more than he already did.

But then, he noticed something strange. For the past two months, a Ten like energy was surrounding her while she was unconscious. However, that Ten didn't belong to her, it was a lot stronger and protected her from any possible threats while she was in her comatose stage. He watched as the energy around her slowly started to disappear until it was finally gone. Just moments later, Himeko slowly opened her eyes and looked up at him in surprise.

"You're Himeko right?" He asked still not being able to believe the fact that she was finally awake.

"Yeah..."

After hearing her reply, he rushed out of the room calling everyone's names trying to let them know that she had finally woken up but Himeko was still in daze. She looked around at the familiar surrounding before slowly getting out of her futon.

_"A dream?"_ She asked herself, looking around her room._ "No it can't be, it felt way too real to have been a dream."_ Her eyes then managed to catch something that proved her theory right. The calender. _"December seventeenth, it's a day before my birthday. Didn't I go to the shrine back in october?"_

Just like how time had past in Yeddo, it past at the same rate in her the present. But she has no clue to what she was doing for two months in the present. She woke up in her room meaning that she had been sleeping there for quite some time but why was she able to feel everything that happened back in Yeddo. Everything there felt just too realistic to be just called a dream.

While trying to answer her own questions, Sensei and the boys came into the room and sat down on the floor next to her. The boys somehow seemed relieved to see her conscious again but Sensei seemed calmer, as if he had expected it to happen sooner or later.

"Did you see everything?" He asked.

"Huh?"

Before she could ask what he meant by that, Toshiro cut in. "Sensei, you said that you would tell us what happened after she woke up. Now that she is awake, would you mind telling us what was going on for the past two months?"

"Maybe we should start by explaining how Kou got here in the first place," Haruko suggested, trying to calm the impatient Toshiro down.

"Fine," he sighed. "You didn't come back for hours so Natsume and I went to search for you and found you collapsed in the main hall of the shrine."

"That's not all," Natsume continued, "We were worried when we couldn't wake you up and brought you back to the dojo. The strange thing however is that when I was carrying you back, I accidentally dropped you but when we checked up on you, you weren't hurt. That was when we used Gyo and saw that you were surrounded by some kind of weird Nen that didn't even belong to you."

_"The whole Nen thing aside, this bastard actually had the nerve to drop me while carrying me back!"_

"Speaking of Nen, I noticed something." Haruko said. "I'm not sure if anyone else noticed but that Nen whoever it belonged to felt strangely similar to Sensei's Nen."

Shortly after his statement, everyone's eyes darted towards Sensei waiting for an explanation.

"I have never told any of you why I look after that shrine," he started off, "but the truth is that my whole ancestry is indebted to her."

This caught Himeko's attention, "By her, do you mean Shinatobe?"

"That is right."

"But why would your whole ancestry be indebted to her?"

"That is because my ancestor is the one that cut her life so short."

"The head priest!" Himeko exclaimed.

"So you have met him. Sending an innocent life out at such a young age, someone later realised that it was wrong and built the shrine in hopes that her soul would find peace after seeing that there were still people that remembered her."

Himeko clenched her fist in anger hearing that, "So they all just did it for themselves, hoping that Shinatobe's spirit won't haunt them. In that case why did they even bother building one, she isn't the kind of person to hold grudges. No, she agreed on all of this because she put trust in the villagers words and in the end they just betrayed her. If Shinatobe were to return as a vengeful spirit then they totally deserve it, otherwise I don't feel like there is any justice in this world."

"What about you, what if your ancestors betrayed her?"

"Then I'd be happy to accept that burden, knowing the kind of person she was and knowing that she didn't deserve to die the way she did."

"I understand, since I've been there when I was just about your age too. Shinatobe rescued me while I was lying unconsciously in the forest, I helped her fight in the war and finally I saw her drift away. Anyone and everyone who goes there will experience the same thing and when it comes to the last couple of moments we won't be able to help her out. She had already passed away five hundred years ago, we can't change that fact no matter what we try to do."

_"So that was why I couldn't get Hiroshi to snap out of it. If he did then maybe he could have found a way to save her."_

"Sensei, that still doesn't explain how Kou got there in the first place!" Natsume pointed out.

"It was Nen," he answered simply. "Isn't it an amazing, it couldn't let us go back to the past but it showed us Shinatobe's memories. This way, her memories will always exist even if she had past away for us to still remember her."

"Did one of your ancestors do that?" Toshiro asked.

"That's right, my child!"

The more she listened to Sensei's explanation the more amazed she was. She laughed whenever Shinatobe mentioned that her Nen was like magic but for a matter of fact Nen truly was something magical. It allowed her not to go back into the past but relive the past. She experienced the life of a young woman who would give so much for everyone around her not expecting anything in return while the people around her just used that quality of hers. For a moment she didn't know whether she should cry over it or try venting her anger. She could try and take it as a life lesson telling people to be less trusting, or she could take it as a punishment from Shinatobe herself making you grow fond of her and seeing her death in front of you without being able to do anything about it.

"Then what about Shinatsuhiko?" Himeko questioned.

"People started calling her by that name later on instead of Shinatobe."

"So what about the goddess Shinatsuhiko?"

"There is a goddess by that name but her shrine is located in another part of Kioto. Shinatobe is no goddess, her _Hatsu_ was wind which is why people called her Shinatsuhiko who happens to be the goddess of wind but other than that there is no relationship between the two. Besides, who told you all this?"

Himeko shot Natsume a glare for making her believe in a goddess of wind that resided in the shrine just to get her to clean the whole place. But thanks to him she's learned quite a lot over the past months whether she liked it or not. To her it seemed quite a bit ironic, the shrine wasn't a place for god to reside, it was Shinatobe's grave and it was in the very place her hut was standing centuries ago.

In the end, all she could do was let out a loud sigh, "Can you all just leave me alone for a while?"

"You are right, you should rest. Even though your body was still here, you were able to experience everything going on in Yeddo first hand. Any injuries or strains on your body you would still be able to feel," Sensei explained. "It might take a while for to be out and about depending on how much work you did."

_"Yeah, I did a shit loads of that..."_

Once Sensei was gone, Himeko looked at the other three waiting for them to join him or at least say something instead of staying silent. Haruko was the first one to stand up, "You probably haven't had any good food lately, I'll go and make you something."

"I'll continue cleaning the training rooms," Toshiro said and left straight after Haruko leaving only Natsume behind.

"So..." he started off.

"What, do you need a special invitation to leave or something?"

"Nope, I was just on my way out too you know. I wanted to -," he stopped to think. "Clean the trees. That's it, we have never cleaned them before I think it's about time we started cleaning them weekly!"

_"Maybe I should tell him that the rain usually washes all the dirt off anyways,"_ she thought watching him leave. _"Nah, it was his fault that I was stuck in Yeddo for around two months, let's let him suffer the consequences of his stupidity."_

The boys soon returned to do all the work around the dojo, letting Himeko rest for a while. But no matter how hard she tried, she was completely restless. She wanted to find out whether anyone actually remembered Shinatobe or whether it was just another pointless waste of a life. Although she knew the answer, she still hoped to find at least a handful of people that remembered her. For hours, she looked through every search result online and read up each and every article to find out whether her sacrifice actually made any difference to the war.

She read all the articles she could find on what happened six years into the war which was the time frame she was in, but there was nothing about Shinatobe. Nothing about an offering made to the gods to end the war. The war went on for five years after her death and only ended after the shogun's assassination. In other words, her death was pointless. No one remembered her and she expected that. After all, her shrine was in the middle of a forest closed off to public. In other words, all this time Sensei was the only one looking after the shrine properly and got the boys to help clean it every three months. She hoped to at least find one site that mentioned her name, but none of them did. All she found were countless of sites with names of famous warriors during the Yeddo period, but Shinatobe wasn't on any of them.

_"Stupid old hag!"_ She cursed before letting out her nth sigh of the day. _"Don't worry, I'll remember you."_

...

Five months have past since Himeko's return from Yeddo. The colder days have gone by and now it was finally warm again. They always say, a new years brings in new opportunities. This statement was true last year when Himeko entered the Hunter's exam and she still couldn't believe that a year had past since then. During the months, she made sure to train but this time under proper guidance, trying to pay attention to each and everything the boys taught her. She wanted to become stronger for any future battles since she noticed that these things come at the most unexpected times. She had to start standing up on her own two feet.

Although she didn't hear anything from Gon, Killua and Kurapika since last September, she still kept in touch with Leorio who would always tell her how he would have to cram the night before an exam. It was typical Leorio, but he still managed to stay up late to revise and somehow scrape a pass mark each and every time, showing his determination to become a doctor.

* * *

**From: Leorio**

Morning, how is our war hero doing today? :D

* * *

Leorio was pretty much the only one who was up to date with Himeko's little adventure in Yeddo and he liked to use the phrase 'war hero' once in a while to tease her, mainly because she didn't even like thinking about going to fight in another war again.

* * *

**To: Leorio**

You trying to pick a fight with me? -_-

It's late afternoon here, I have to go on some kind of stupid mission with Toshi and Natsu because no one is going to be here to 'look after me'. Haru has gone out and won't be back for another couple of months and surprisingly Sensei had something to do to. Can't remember what the mission was about, I just know that it has something to do with bugs. Ew!

Well, gotta keep packing so I'll text you later. Remember to study well! ^^

* * *

**From: Leorio**

What are you? My mum? Telling me to study every single day! A man needs some rest too you know!

And good luck, have fun playing with the little bugs. Remember to keep me updated since everyone else seems too busy to do so.

* * *

**To: Leorio**

Will do ^^

* * *

After that, Himeko put aside her phone and started to look through her bag trying to double check that she had everything packed.

_"A few sets of clothes, fresh socks, underwear, hair brush, toothbrush, toothpaste, umbrella and wallet!" _She counted. Then she got out her wallet to check whether she had everything inside. _"Hunter license, cash, bank card, Haru's credit card. Okay, I've got everything!"_

When she was about to put her phone inside her backpack and zip it back up, she received a phone call which startled her. Lately, only Leorio and Haruko would call her but neither of them would call her at this hour. Haruko would be busy working at his research lab while Leorio had just texted her. At first she thought that either Gon or Killua finally remembered having a pretty friend and decided to call her, but for some reason the call was from a private number. After thinking about it for a moment, she picked the call up and waited for a response from the other side of the line. However, since no one spoke she decided to talk instead.

"Hello?"

"Well, hello." Hearing the voice on the other side, she felt her skin crawl. She didn't really expect a call from him after she had blocked his number but he still contacted her. "I apologise, I was busy last october so I couldn't pick up any of your calls."

_"Busy my ass, you were probably too busy stalking Gon and Killua to the end of the world!"_

"I see you blocked my number."

"I did since I don't have any more business with you."

"How mean of you~," he said in a slightly pouty voice. "I've just apologised for not picking up haven't I? Why don't we just put that all in the past and start over."

"In that case, before I rudely cut the call on you answer my question. Why exactly are you helping me find my brother?"

"Why not?" He asked. "I simply want to see a sibling reunion. After all, he is a dear friend of mine and you managed to find a special place in my heart along with Gon and the others."

"You expect me to believe that bullshit?" She asked in response. "The person I just happen to understand the most on this planet is myself, and I'm a transmuter. Wouldn't that mean that I'll be able to understand other transmuters as well? You were right the other day by calling me a cat. I mind my own business unless I need something, just like a cat approaching it's owner in the need for food. That does remind me of myself, so spit it out. What are your intentions?"

The other line was silent, and Himeko waited for a response. However, she could imagine the look on Hisoka's face on the other side, wearing that unpleasant smile he usually would in this kind of situation. Moments later, she heard clapping noises from the other side of the line.

"I applaud you for figuring that much out," he flattered her. "Your brother is quite interesting, he would sometimes act like a _completely different person_. I want to fight him at least once. It will be good fun, I just know it."

"Just stop talking nonsense and get to the point. Why did you call?"

"Do you want to see a magic trick?"

Himeko tilted her head in confusion, "What?"

"A magic trick, isn't that what you children love most?"

"In that case, you can start by making yourself disappear."

But hearing her typical response, Hisoka just laughed and started counting down from ten. Although it didn't bother her at first, she then remembered that this was Hisoka she was talking to. There had to be some kind of trick behind this. She started to panic.

_"Could there be a bomb somewhere?"_ She questioned. She frantically looked around her room before remembering that Hisoka had never been to that dojo. _"Maybe there is a bomb on me!" _She continued searching her body inside her clothes trying to find maybe a small bug like bomb attached to her, but before she realised Hisoka had already finished counting down and she waited for the worst to happen.

_'You have new mail'_

She heard the notification from her tablet lying around in her room once Hisoka reached zero.

"Aren't you going to check?" He asked. Himeko hesitantly moved towards the corner of the room and checked her mailbox.

_"This better not be a scam!" _But it was neither. There was a picture attached and she wondered whether it was safe to open up. It could be anything; one of those pop out scary images, a computer virus, a naked picture of Hisoka; wait, what?

She took a deep breath preparing herself for what was ahead and opened up the attachment to find a picture of Hakuryuu.

"This is..."

"I'm guessing you've opened the picture up," he interrupted. "Use that picture to find him, show it to your friends so they can help you. Good luck on your search, my business is done. If you do want to have a chat when you are bored feel free to give me a call since you've of course blocked my number and I can't get through to you with my phone. Bye~"

Once Hisoka cut the call, she sat there trying to process what the hell just happened. Hisoka on the other hand, stood there with a leer outside the public phone booth._ "Himeko is the switch to trigger Hak's personality switch. He will be the strongest in her presence and once that happens, I'll have my fun."_ He thought._ "Unfortunately you aren't just a cat but a black cat, bringing bad luck to Hak whenever you cross his path. Well, unfortunate for him, not so much for me."_

Not too soon after Natsume walked into her room and saw her with her packed bag but in a daze, "Come on, it's time for us to leave. We'll miss the flight."

Hearing his voice, she finally snapped out of it. "Right!"

Their flight was a transit flight, and the first flight was overnight. According to Toshiro, they were going to join another team who requested some pro Hunters to join at their transit destination. Throughout the long flight, all three of them fell asleep preparing for the day ahead and were woken up by the announcement of their arrival. They left the airship with all their belongings and made their way to the next gate where they were going to meet up with the other group of Hunters. However, a trip wouldn't go so smoothly if it had both Himeko and Natsume tagging along who drove Toshiro mental.

"Toshi, Toshi, go and buy me an apple pie!" Himeko ordered.

"You just had food on the flight!" Toshiro pointed out in an annoyed tone.

"That food was disgusting though!" She protested before she repeated her order. "Toshi, Toshi, go buy me apple pie!"

"Toshi, Toshi, make that two apple pies," Natsume added in an indifferent tone, watching Toshiro stomp away angrily to get them their bloody apple pies. Once he returned with a pie for each of them, he navigated them through the airport to find their gate while hearing satisfied munching noises from the pair behind him.

"Toshi, Toshi, buy me hot chocolate from over there!" Himeko gave him yet another order once she was done eating, pointing at a nearby coffee store.

"You had tea on the flight!" Toshiro pointed out yet again, expecting some kind of response in return.

"But that was green tea, I don't like green tea!" She whined again.

Toshiro found himself giving in once again and angrily stormed off to get her the hot chocolate she requested.

"Toshi, Toshi, buy me a latte while you are at it!" Natsume requested in Himeko's tone. Toshiro found himself buying them whatever they requested with his own money and continued navigating them through the airport while hearing satisfied slurping noises from behind.

"This is all your fault for spoiling her!" He complained to Natsume.

"I haven't even bought her one single thing since she moved into the dojo, it's you and Haru who spoil her!"

"Well, that's because I deserve to be spoilt!" She said smugly, making Toshiro rub his temples in frustration for being paired up with these two. After a little walk, Toshiro had finally found their gate and saw the group of Hunters waiting for them in the distance.

"We are here!" He announced before turning to Himeko. "You better behave, Natsu and I haven't been on a mission for such a long time and you better not ruin it for us."

Himeko raised her brow in annoyance, "What am I? Five?"

"I don't care how old you are, just be on your best behaviour and you can start by putting all those wrappers in the bin."

"Geez," Himeko pouted before going away to the nearest bin to dispose of her rubbish. Toshiro and Natsume on the other hand walked off to the group of Hunters waiting for their arrival and were greeted by a tall, slender man with long silver hair and a blue beret.

"You two must be the pro Hunters that volunteered for the mission," he said holding out his hand. "My name is Kite, I'm leading this team for the exploration. These are Banana Kavaro, Lin Koshi, Monta Yuras, Stick Dinner, Spinner Clow and Podungo Lapoy, all part of of my original expedition group."

"I'm Toshiro, I contacted you the other day if you remember." Toshiro accepted and shook his hand.

Natsume also proceeded to introduce himself too, "I'm Natsume, but I'd prefer it if you just called me Natsu. I also accepted the request. "

Kite then gestured to two children by his side, "These two might not look like it, but they are pro hunters as well and decided to join me on the quest."

"Hi, I'm Gon Freeces. Nice to meet you, Toshiro and Natsu!"

"Killua Zoldyck."

Hearing their names, Toshiro and Natsume started to think, _"These names sound a bit too familiar..."_

_"_Shall we get going then?" Kite asked now that everyone was gathered together.

"Hold on a minute, we actually brought along a nuisance. She should be here in a moment!" Toshiro informed him before looking back at Himeko who was making her way to the group, taking her time. "Oi, Zashiki Warashi* hurry up!"

"Yeah yeah, I'm coming!" She groaned back in response. "Also, didn't I tell you to stop calling me that?"

Hearing a familiar voice, Gon and Killua looked at each other, _"It can't be..."._

To double check, they leaned over to see who exactly was coming their way.

"Ah, Kou!" Gon beamed brightly upon seeing her.

Killua on the other hand just sighed, _"He was right about bringing along a nuisance..."_

Himeko looked up hearing Gon's voice, "Ah, it's Gon and the other kid!" She exclaimed loudly pointing at the pair.

* * *

***Zashiki Warashi - **The name given to a spirit of a young child that would haunt a house by playing pranks and causing mischief. Could be either a boy or a girl, but girls would usually have short back hair and pale skin (doesn't that remind you of someone here?). There is another reason why Toshiro calls her that which I will reveal in a couple of chapters.

**A/n- **Crappy chapter, please don't kill me for that! I'm actually so scared to release this chapter right now!

That aside, does anyone want to take Himeko and Natsume on a trip? xD

Well, since I asked a question last chapter I might as well reveal who got the closest answer. Drum roll please!

.

.

.

There are two people who were close. They were **Queechi** and **TangoUnicornA** (yes, I spelt your username right this time!). Also, I love how you called Killua and Kurapika her unfinished business out of all the possible things she has to do xD And you mentioned a final battle but let me just explain that there were 5 more years of the war after Shinatobe's death so the final battle wouldn't have happened until then. I know I explained this in the chapter but oh well, I said it again. Well, give these two a round of applause (okay I was probably the only one who was clapping... never mind)

A special award goes to **Haine** for leaving a mysterious review making even the author (aka me) curious on what she actually meant. Please tell me moah! Also gurl, why you going around spoiling things for yourself? Tut tut tut.

Another special mention to **kinbarii. tan** for nearly solving another mystery that I've made people think about. You were kinda right, the Inoues decided to shut themselves off because they were getting too attached to the people outside. Stupid reason I know, but I'm not an Inoue so don't blame me. (What the hell am I talking about, I'm the author...)

Congratulations to **kri** who managed to remember it having to do with a goddess and remembering the goddess' name (sorta). (Although sorry to say this but Natsume trolled you all). But you said that they'll make a myth about her which means that she doesn't exist. So you were kinda close!

Also, a special shout out to **xhunterxhunterx** who didn't actually participate in the competition but still made me go all red and flustered (to the point where my brother actually walked in and asked whether I finally got myself a boyfriend so I wouldn't stay on my laptop 24/7 and actually lead a normal life outside. Well screw him!). P.s - my vocab actually sucks but I'm glad someone appreciates it xD

...

Once again, thanks for all the support you people have given me! I know I might be annoying you all now by telling you that in each and every chapter but seriously I think I might actually have a cardiac arrest after seeing such a big number of people that actually read this.

That said, I hope you are all prepared. We still have a long way to go and a huge arc ahead! Anyone excited? I know I am since the next arc holds so many emotions, seriously the feels in that arc doe! I will try adding lighthearted moments here and there though :D

Omg I just realised that my username is Justanimefanfics but I've only written three fanfics about one series. Shame on me lol xD


	42. To NGL

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 42**

_To NGL_

...

"Ah, it's Kou!" Gon beamed upon seeing Himeko.

Killua on the other hand just sighed. _"He was right about bringing along a nuisance..."_

Hearing Gon's cheerful voice, Himeko looked up and pointed at the boys. "Oh, it's Gon and the other kid!"

_"... so according to her I'm just Gon's little sidekick."_

Realising that it's been forever since they've last seen each other, Himeko just walked past Toshiro and Natsume and noticed how much the boys had grown during their stay at Greed Island. "Wow, I thought this was going to be a mission about some bugs, I would have never guessed to meet you both here. How have you two been, and it seems like you two still recognise me although you haven't contacted me in a while." She said. "I thought you two completely forgot about me!"

"No, we were just too busy with Greed Island," Gon explained. "We actually just returned a couple of days ago and met Kite. He told us about a mission he was going on and allowed us two to tag along."

"Wow, it certainly is a small world..." she thought out loud.

_"She completely forgot that we are still here too..."_ Toshiro thought, watching her happily engaging in a conversation with her two friends. Well, at least one of them that is. He turned to Kite, wanting to introduce her, "This is the nuisance I was talking about." He informed him before giving her a nudge, letting her know that it was disrespectful to ignore the team leader. "Introduce yourself, kid!"

She gave him a glare for hitting her on the shoulder before turning to the team. "I'm Himeko Inoue, nice to meet you all!"

"She is one of our students," Toshiro proceeded to explain, only to get a _'what the hell are you on about' _look from Himeko.

_"Dude, I'm like your only student!"_

"She's also our best student," Natsume added to his friends previous statement.

_"I would have actually taken that as a compliment if you had more than just one fricking student!"_

"Ah, I understand!" one of the amateur Hunters exclaimed. "You must be an aspiring Hunter just like us under Toshiro's and Natsu's supervision!"

"Nope, they just train me." Himeko corrected him. "I'm actually a Pro Hunter myself. A Contract Hunter just like these two to be precise." The team members were all so surprised to have yet another young Pro Hunter join their team. As if Gon being the world famous Ging Freeces' son and Killua being a Zoldyck hadn't surprised them enough. She continued, "I actually took the exam in the same year as Gon and Killua, so that's why I know them."

"She just started her job as a Contract Hunter and has only been doing little odd jobs, so please don't expect a lot from her." Toshiro burst her little bubble of fame. "She is still under training, so please look after her!"

Himeko shot yet another glare at him, _"You son of a bitch, they were starting to get impressed as well!"_

"Inoue?" Kite questioned after giving it a thought. "Could you be part of the clan?"

Kite seemed like a fountain of knowledge, so Himeko wasn't exactly surprised that he knew of the clan. Instead of giving him her usual response just like Toshiro and Natsume expected, they were surprised when she gave an unexpected answer. "Yes that's right, I used to be part of the Main Clan," she responded proudly. For the amateur Hunters in Kite's team she just added the cherry on top. The son of a world famous Hunter, member of the famous Zoldycks and a member of an once famous clan were all gathered up together and were about to join them on their quest.

Seeing the group of amateur Hunters amazed by Gon's, Killua's and her own capabilities and backgrounds, a satisfied ear-to-ear grin was plastered all over her face. _"That's right, I'm amazing. See how amazing I am people, I am more than just amazing, I'm one of the creme de la creme. Forget that, just bow down at my feet peasants- wait, did I just say that?" _While deeply thinking about whether she was now becoming a lot more full of herself; maybe even more than she used to be; she felt a hard pat on her head snapping her out of the conceited thoughts she was having, _"Who dares to interrupt the great Himeko Inoue when she was praising herself?"_

"Let me just remind you once more, she is still one of our students. She has a lot to learn!" Toshiro, of course who else would interrupt her seeing how amazed they were. "Those two kids might be geniuses, but our Kou is nothing like them."

_"Son of a bitch ruined my glory for the second time!" _She thought, sending Toshiro various death threats inside her head. _"And this time he even compared me to Gon and Killua. I don't lack anything, I trained for so long. I even took part in a war, I bet they didn't do anything that great. I mean hello, I was leader of division one, the great demon Himeko Inoue, respected by all my subordinates whom I only gave fifteen minutes every morning to eat, shower and shit. Now that I think about it, they must have really hated me, huh?"_ Seeing her annoyed expression, Killua could only watch and snicker. _"Oh, now Killua thinks he is such a big shot. Laugh at me all you want, I'll kick your ass soon enough. Enjoy your prideful days while they last!" _

Killua looked up to see her glaring at him while Gon was standing right next to him hoping that a fight wasn't going to break out any time soon. Well, he was just hoping so. He knew they were going to fight sooner or later. "Whatcha looking at, huh?" Himeko raised a brow.

"Me?" He casually pointed at himself. "Nothing much, just the usual. I'm talking about plain, ugly face by the way."

"Oooh, burn..." Natsume proceeded to add more fuel to the already out of control fire. "What's our Kou going to do next?"

_"Oh no..." _Gon thought, knowing Himeko could snap any time soon and when that happens, there would be no stopping to their arguing until one of them decided to 'act mature' and just 'let it all go'.

However, they were all surprised when she somehow maturely handled her brewing anger and exhaled loudly. She then looked at Kite and his group, reminding herself not to snap because they were still there too. Toshiro did promise her a share of the reward if she behaved herself and as a noob, no one was willing to hire her for a well paid job. In other words, this was a good way for her to earn some quick cash.

"Hm.. so you've turned deaf over the months too!" Killua threw in a remark, watching her in calm manner. To him, it just didn't feel right starting off their reunion without a fight. Even Gon was slightly confused to seeing her calm as he expected a fight to break out, but seeing a much calmer Himeko after these months he somehow felt relieved. Nonetheless, he still kept provoking her, "Oi, stupid. I'm insulting you, fight back at least!"

Himeko on the other hand just ignored his efforts and chanted, _"Himeko won't snap, Himeko won't snap, Himeko won't snap, Himeko won't snap. "_

Seeing her trying to calm herself down, Gon tried to change the subject. "So, Kou you didn't change much since we've last seen each other. And did you shrink? You are shorter than I remember."

"That's because you two had a massive growth spurt," Himeko pointed out.

"Hmm... you even cut your hair. It was longer back in Yorkshin," Killua added.

"Wasn't it you who told me to cut it in the first place?" She asked in response.

"You did Killua?"

"Don't remember doing such a thing!"

_"Bastard, I cut off my pretty long hair that took me so long to grow out because you told me that I look better with short hair and look at you forgetting everything about it. You were so nice that day, go back to that attitude!"_ She thought back. "You guys didn't change much either. All you did was grow, other than that you don't look different."

"But Kou, you didn't even grow. Only your clothes changed."

Himeko took a moment to examine her own clothes. He did have a point. Now that he mentioned it, she did remember that Haruko was the one buying her most of her things now. She did wear a so called upgraded version of her signature white dress, only with a few more ruffles. The mid sleeved dress reached a few inches above her knees and she wore black, knee length leggings underneath with navy coloured plimsoles and a navy bowler hat. Yep, this was definitely an update from what she looked like during the Hunter exam. At least the clothes told Gon and Killua that whoever looked after her was doing a pretty good job.

"Kou version 2.0?" Natsume thought out loud, so everyone was able to hear him. "No, that was Himeko when she went to Yorkshin. Kou version 2.5 it is!"

_"Do I look like a robot or something..."_

"Whatever clothes you wear though, it isn't going to change the fact that you are still flat as a washboard," Killua remarked. "What? Aren't you supposed to be thirteen? I don't see any development yet!"

Toshiro just face palmed, _"Can we just get into the fucking air ship already?"_

Gon was starting to internally panic, wondering how he could control the upcoming storm.

Natsume on the other hand just smirked at the thought of there finally being some action to look forward to, _"This is gonna be good!"_

_"Washboard, huh?"_ Her eyes started to twitch in annoyance. She looked over at the smirking Natsume and her eyes travelled to the empty coffee cup he was still holding. "You done with that? I can dispose of it if you want."

"You'd do that?" Natsume asked in surprise. The way Himeko sometimes acted made him wonder whether they were long lost siblings only by personality. He was lazy, she was just as lazy, he bossed Toshiro around, she also bossed Toshiro around. He was still holding onto the empty paper cup in his hand simply because he just couldn't be asked to walk to a bin and throw it away, and Himeko would have definitely done the same thing. But since she offered to throw it away, maybe to suck up to Toshiro to get a higher proportion of the reward, he gladly handed the empty cup over. "Here!"

"Thanks," once it was in Himeko's hand, she scrunched it into a ball and aimed it straight at his face, "Take this, you walking trash can!" However, when it hit his face and fell back on the floor, she calmly picked it up and disposed of it in the, this time real trash can a couple of meters away from Killua. "Sorry, my aiming was off." She faked her apology.

Gon however stepped in between the two before a real fight could break out, "Cut it out you two, you did enough fighting for today. Continue tomorrow!"

"Tomorrow around 1 PM sounds great," Natsume added. "It would be great entertainment to watch while eating lunch."

This time, Toshiro was the one to put an end to Natsume's nonsense by giving him a hit on the head to stop him from speaking any further. "Be quiet, you've caused enough trouble for today too."

"We can board the airship now," Kite finally announced. "I will fill you in on everything inside."

"Yes, let's do that!" Toshiro nodded in agreement to the plan. On the airship, Toshiro joined Kite and his group to discuss any new findings they haven't been informed of yet. He didn't think much of the mission at first, not until a photograph and measurements of the arm was sent to him. There wasn't much known about the chimera ants, and Kite certainly did his best in sending most of his findings to him although there wasn't much to begin with. The fact that NGL was involved alarmed him as well. Although Hunters had access to most parts of the world, he knew that entering NGL wouldn't be as easy as it sounded.

Natsume on the other hand stayed with the kids, knowing the discussion would bore him. He understood the basic principles of the mission and was a fast learner unlike Toshiro and he picked up things as he went along. Even if he didn't, Toshiro was always there to fill him in. The only person who knew hardly anything about the mission was Himeko, who was getting an explanation from both Gon and Killua.

According to them, Kite and his crew usually take part in biological surveys about newly discovered species of animals. A researcher named Won found a mysterious claw while travelling the Azian continent and brought it back. Kite was then hired to investigate this matter further. The claw was on display in Yorkshin city and for an insect body part, it was abnormally big. Chimera ants were classified as class one organisms, making them very dangerous. Dangerous to the point where Kite had to kill the whole ant nest once they started to climb up Killua's leg.

Himeko, who hated small insects already was starting to get nervous. "How big exactly was the arm?"

"I still have the picture and measurements," Natsume said before taking out his Hunter tablet and opening the file. "There."

After Natsume handed her the device, she started to flip through the pictures taken at various angles. The pictures didn't scare her much, but what shocked her were the measurements written beside the picture. "This could easily be larger than my own arm."

"That's what Kite is worried about," Gon said. "He said the arm is abnormally big, and his team also wondered how it got so big in the first place."

"His team said it could be due to Phagogenesis, the way they reproduce. The Queen would eat an organism, give birth and the next generation would inherit the abilities of whatever the Queen had fed on," Killua continued.

"That makes sense!" Himeko said. "If the Queen feeds on a larger organism, the offspring would gradually become larger as well. It's a process of evolution after all."

"That's right!" Killua nodded. "But judging from the size of the claw, the ant could easily be over six feet tall. Let's just hope that the Ant Queen doesn't get a sudden craving for human meat."

Whether it was the serious tone he used to deliver the news, or whether it was the news itself, Himeko couldn't help but gulp. The more she heard about these creatures, the more she wished to be back home, scrubbing the dojo floors.

"Don't worry," Natsume patted her back lightly, trying to cheer her up. "Let's just hope that human meat tastes awful." Although it was a tasteless joke, Himeko managed to calm down a little. "Besides, the three of us haven't really gotten to know each other much. I'm Natsume, one of Himeko's teachers."

"One of them?" Gon questioned.

"Yeah, I have three teachers." Himeko explained. "All three of them teach me different things. Natsu teaches me hand to hand combat and Toshi teaches me Nen. I have another teacher who went on another mission a while back and he teaches me how to control my strength."

"Ah, I understand!" Gon said. "Well, that leaves us two to introduce ourselves."

Natsume however cut in before he could start, "I already know everything about you two thanks to Kou," he smiled, "once she starts talking about you two she can't seem to stop."

"Oi, stop it!" Himeko interrupted. "I only muttered a few words about them, no need to over exaggerate!"

"It's a shame though, we didn't know you two were going to be part of the team," Natsume sighed in disappointment. "We even prepared a memorable introduction for the two of us."

"Really?" Gon's eyes sparked up, obviously wanting to know more.

"Yeah, that's right. We can still show it to you two if you want!"

"We don't mind, right Killua?"

_"Oh boy..." _Killua thought, not able to imagine what kind of nonsense the two were up to now.

Natsume and Himeko both got up from the bench they were sitting on and took a few things out of their bags. Both of them took out a matching snapback before putting them on and added a pair of sunglasses. While they were busy getting ready for their performance, Toshiro finished his discussion with Kite and was heading back.

"Natsu!" Toshiro called, making his way towards them. But he just sighed once he saw what they were up to while he was gone. Although Natsume was meant to be his partner during the mission and Himeko was supposed to be his obedient student, he felt like he was taking the two to a school trip and babysitting them on the way.

"Oh Toshi is here too, we can start!" Himeko announced.

"We don't have anyone to beatbox, but it's fine. We can do it without the beat, right?" He asked her.

Himeko nodded with excitement, "Yeah!"

Toshiro who knew what was going to happened, walked over to the bench and sat next to the excited Gon and Killua who wore the same expression as him. Himeko cleared her throat to start their little show.

"Yo, yo, yo ~"

"We are Natsume and Kou!"

"Toshi ain't rapping but he is with us too!" Himeko continued to rap. "Now listen up!"

"We live in Kioto at the bottom of Mt. A. Wake up, train and eat is what we do all day ~"

"We also have to clean, but let's not talk 'bout that. If we fail to do then Sensei'll whoop our ass ~"

"Let's just cut it short and tell you who we are."

"Natsu, Toshi, Kou, we are the dojo crew, yeah we are!"

Once they were done rapping, they stood there proudly waiting for their well deserved applause but all the audience could do is sweat drop.

_"Is this what second hand embarrassment feels like?"_ Toshiro and Killua thought while mentally face palming.

"It was fun to listen to," Gon commented. "Killua, we should make one too."

"No way in hell am I rapping!"

"Why not, it looks fun."

Before they could continue, Toshiro stood up. "Natsu, I need to have a word with you about the mission."

Natsume just protested, "I already read over everything back home though, twice!"

"This isn't about the mission itself but NGL," Toshiro informed him. "We discussed this back at the dojo and I had a word about it with Kite."

Natsume sighed in defeat, "Fine, I'll come with you."

Before he tagged along, he took off his ridiculous attire and put it back inside his rucksack. Gon, Killua and Himeko watched the pair walk off in silence, probably about to discuss something really important on the way. They were curious on what it could be, but whatever it was they will find out sooner or later. After they were out of sight, Himeko too decided to take off her snapback and but her bowler hat on again. She also took off her sunglasses and placed them safely inside her case and inside the rucksack.

"How was Greed Island?" She asked, sitting back down. It was an adventure she would have been able to experience as well if it wasn't for Hisoka, so she was curious on what actually happened in there. She could also sense that the pair must have been training really hard, they were much more confident with their Hatsu. But then again, they just started learning Hatsu back in Yorkshin so of course they would have been stronger. She couldn't wait to see how strong they have gotten over the months.

Gon proceeded to tell her everything that happened in Greed Island. He admitted that they were quite senseless when they first got there, not knowing where to go or what to do but only until they met Biscuit Kreuger that is. The woman whom they judged to be an innocent twelve year old with an adventurous streak and turned out to be an old, experienced and perverted Nen trainer; even training their previous teacher Wing. After meeting the hopeless boys, she decided to train their Hatsu and teach them the advance Nen techniques.

"Oh also, Killua passed his exam this year!" Gon added.

"Congrats, but it shouldn't have been much of a challenge for him anyway." Himeko pointed out. "He knows Nen now."

Killua found himself agreeing with her, "It really wasn't."

"Did you meet anyone from last year?" She asked, trying to remember at least one person who took the exam with them but failed. "Like that guy, Tampon was it? Oh sorry, I'm talking about the things girls use on their periods."

A brief moment of silence surrounded the trio once she brought up the word tampon instead of actually remembering Tonpa; the bastard that tried to give them the laxative at the very start. The boys just blinked awkwardly, not knowing what else to do until Killua decided to continue talking.

"I did see some familiar faces," he admitted. "But none of them actually changed much so it wasn't much of a challenge. I just took them all out."

Killua continued from where Gon left off and explained that in order to leave the game they had to find one hundred playing cards. Other players would usually appear to try and snatch it off them, but with Bisky's training it started to become a lot easier to find the cards. One of the cards was located in a gym and was also one of the most difficult to obtain cards. Along with Hisoka, and a couple of other players they entered a sporting event that later turned into a dodgeball tournament. Although Himeko somehow had a feeling that Hisoka would have been involved in everything, she still found herself surprised at the fact that the two worked together with him in a dodgeball tournament.

The search for the cards continued after winning the tournament and Gon started talking about their battle with the so called Bomber; a player that went around blowing up other players and once they won, they had a total of ninety nine cards. The last card Gon won during a quiz that took part all over the island and after they completed the game, they decided to search for the player 'Nigg' who they thought would be Ging, but turned out to be Kite. That's how they ended up getting involved in the mission too.

"Sounds like you've been through a lot," Himeko commented. But she was slightly disappointed by the fact that she couldn't participate, it sounded fun. The meeting with Bisky, the dodgeball tournament with Hisoka and the battle with Bomber.

"What about you?" Gon asked. "Did your search for your brother go well?"

Himeko could only sigh. She stubbornly left Yorkshin wanting to find him after following Hisoka's instructions only to come so close and let her brother slip through her fingers once again. She told them about her journey to her hometown and visit to her mansion. "I was relieved when I saw one our servants still alive, but he clearly told me that he won't be abandoning the mansion. It made me proud to have such kind servants, but it also made me feel a bit selfish for leaving him alone like that. He said he will wait for the return of my brother and I, but I told him that I won't be returning. With my brother I have no clue, it could take me years to find him."

"You said you did see him though," Killua pointed out.

"That's right, I caught a glimpse of him but then the train left." She sighed. "I just have to wait for my next chance I guess."

"At least you came close to finding him." Gon mentioned. He was right, Gon still didn't have a clue on what his father looked like while Himeko at least has seen him. That reminded her of something; the picture Hisoka had sent. She took it out and showed it to them.

"This is him, if you ever see him then contact me!"

Gon and Killua carefully examined the picture shown to them. They somehow expected him to look the way he did, his features were very similar to Himeko's. Even if they weren't shown the picture, they could have easily pointed him out in a crowd if they saw him.

"He looks a lot like you!" Gon commented, while comparing her brother in the picture with Himeko.

"Yeah, our looks run in the family."

"So once he left, you returned to Kioto?" Killua asked, ignoring her usual self praise.

"That's right, but then I was away for two months." She started to tell them her next story. She didn't care whether they believed her or not, but after hearing everything that happened in Greed Island, her own story sounded a lot more believable. She started off by telling them Natsume's little lie, and how she went to clean the shrine in the forest. She continued to tell them about Shinatobe, a young woman living with her younger brother in Yeddo five hundred years ago and how she was a Genius. She was considered special, being able to use Nen which was a really rare ability back then. Due to this, she was forced to fight in the war and Himeko somehow managed to get involved while running that big mouth of hers, which didn't really surprised Gon or Killua. They were surprised to hear that there was a Nen ability that could let someone relive someone's memories when she explained that the shrine was built by one of Sensei's ancestors. She also mentioned meeting her own ancestors from the Inoue clan and told them that back then, they were quite famous.

"So you fought in the war?" Gon asked in awe. "That's amazing!"

"That's right, I was later appointed as leader of the first division. I even had to take on a whole troop of over one thousand men all by myself."

"You sure you didn't cry?" Killua asked. He could believe the fact that she managed to beat a thousand men who didn't know of Nen, but knowing her, he knew she would start crying right after killing them all.

"No, I was really brave. If I really time travelled I would have been in history books as a war hero, that's how good I was!" Himeko lied, before she started thinking back to what actually happened.

_Flashback to what happened on the way back from Himeko's last fight_

"Why me?" She started crying out loud. "Why do I have to do all the dirty work, I just want to lead a normal life! Why can't I go back home, I want to go back home, someone please send me home. Is a normal life, food, sleep and a handsome boyfriend - preferably Kurapika too much to ask for? If someone sends me home right now I'll become a vegetarian for the rest of my life although meat is the love of my life. Please, someone!"

_End of flashback_

"Yeah... I was totally brave and all. Beating the shit out of everyone who came in my way," she lied again while chuckling nervously, finally remembering what actually happened back then.

"What happened then?" Gon asked.

"Shinatobe ended up being sacrificed to end the war." Himeko answered, making Gon's and Killua's faces drop. "I know I couldn't do anything to change her fate, but I still feel guilty after watching die in front of me. It was pointless as well, the war didn't come to an end until five years after her death and no one bothered to remember her. Sometimes people just give it their all, try the best they can for the people around them but still aren't acknowledged. She was either too kind, or everyone else around her was too self centred. Whichever it was, it just reminded me to not trust everyone around me."

Her story about Shinatobe reminded Gon of something Kite told both the boys before they could join the mission. "Remember what Kite told us before we left, Killua?" He asked. "He told us to escape if we were to be in any danger."

"Yeah, but it didn't really sound like he gave us a choice."

"That's why neither of us actually said anything in response," Gon pointed out, "but I thought about it, could this mission be really that dangerous for Kite who managed to earn Ging's respect?"

_"He does have a point,"_ Himeko thought. _"But Kite might just try and prepare for the worst. After all, they mentioned that even he didn't know the extends to the ants abilities._"

"Killua told me that my meeting with Kite was planned by Ging for whatever reason. I don't know what what his purpose might be but I can't give up half way, otherwise I'll just end up disappointing Ging. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself either if I were to run away, so I've decided that I won't!"

Somehow his determined expression made Himeko smile. She somehow had a feeling that he would say this after bringing up the fact that Kite told them to run if anything were to happen. It was just unlike him to run away and the Hunter exams just proved it. Gon didn't abandon Leorio when he couldn't run anymore, neither did he abandon Kurapika, Leorio or her when they were confronted by Hisoka. He didn't back out during Yorkshin either even when he came face to face with the Troupe. He faced them fearlessly, it actually made her wonder whether he actually knew what fear felt like. If not, she'd be willing to give him half of her own fears so he could experience it first hand. Not only that, she also noticed something else about Gon. _"He sees his father in Kite, so I guess I know where he is coming from."_

"Man," Killua sighed. "You took so long just to tell us that? I was expecting something big as well after all that build up."

"I thought really hard about this though, I even ran some mental simulations and did some predictions inside my head."

"Think all you want, you'll still be Gon!" Killua said. "If you are told to abandon someone, you simply won't do it. That's just who you are!"

Gon turned to Himeko, "Don't tell me you think so too, Kou!" All she could do was just shrug, giving him a smile. Killua had hit the nail on the head, there wasn't anything left for her to add anyway. "You two make it seem like I wasted my time thinking about it. What about you two then?"

Killua was the first to answer, "I'll think about it on the spot!"

"So you might run away?"

"It depends," he answered. "I won't know for sure until I get into the situation."

"What about you Kou?" Gon turned over and asked her.

"I guess I'll go with what Killua said. I might run away, stay and help or freeze on the spot not knowing what to do, it all depends on the situation."

"Okay, let's say we all go and-"

"Gon stop it, I won't know what to do until the time comes."

"Okay Kou, what if Killua were to get attacked?"

Killua objected, "Gon, why am I the one getting attacked?"

"That's easy, I'll run the fuck away from there." She joked, trying to liven to mood.

"No seriously Kou, what will you do?"

"Let's just say I'll decide when the time comes."

"Not you too!"

Although they were now laughing and giggling, Kite managed to hear their earlier conversation. Although he wasn't very happy about it, he wasn't surprised either. Gon was Ging's son and although Himeko mentioned Gon seeing Ging in Kite, Kite could easily see Ging in Gon too. It wasn't that surprising, they were father and son after all but nonetheless, the fact that Gon was a lot like Ging also worried him, especially now that they were nearing their destination.

* * *

**A/n - **I'm sorry that there wasn't much plot movement in this chapter. It was meant to be a break from the pervious intense chapters. You can consider this a 'filler' chapter if you want to.

Stay tuned for the next chapter of Hunter x Hime, where Gon and Killua finally ditch their shorts (Himeko: FINALLY, IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME!)

**[Shameless advertising ahead] - **I recently started a collab with one of the readers of this fanfic. It's called Three x Trouble (aka 3 times trouble) and features out Himeko as one of the three mains. If you want to know what she is up to after the Chairman Election arc, check it out! It's comedy and features two of Queechi's OCs and if you are interested you can go and check it out. It's up on his account. P.s - don't worry, we won't include any spoilers of what will happen during the Chimera ant arc and the Chairman election arc in there.

**Review corner - **

**Queechi -** It was anticlimactic, but at least you won't kill me for that so yaay! Love how you call it blossoming love when I can't even see anything blossoming. xD

**Haine -** You were really close with your prediction. I actually wanted to go with a similar ending to your prediction, but there were a few plot holes for example how Sensei got into the picture and why he takes care of the shrine. And to add to your point, I completely forgot I was writing a HxH fanfic because I didn't mention any of the canon characters over the last couple of chapters.

I'm glad you liked the Yeddo arc. And it took you half an hour to read, but it took me around four days to write that much and check over a couple of times. Also, I kinda felt honoured when you left a review saying you re-read it.

Also by now, I feel like Himeko should ditch the whole Hunter thing and become a singer/rapper. Maybe she could be the next member of AKB xD

**kpoplover88 -** I know your review was posted on chapter 1, but thank you. I hope you see this though!

**SilverLove -** If I could, I would update every couple of hours just for you! I solely focus on developing Himeko's character just because I don't want her to be the only undeveloped character as the story progresses. It's a little surprising that you fell in love with her personality, if I walked past a cursing Himeko I'd blame her parents for raising her badly, but they actually did a good job in raising her. She just changed on her own. Maybe that just is her charm lol xD

I hope you liked this update though although the story didn't progress much. It was just meant to be a break from all the action that happened over the past few chapters before I moved on. I'll try to update as much as I can during the summer :D

**Guest 1 -** Wow, you must be such a big Hisoka lover xD Two paragraphs solely on him. I like making Himeko talk to Hisoka, it's just funny because she makes funny remarks although she is so scared of him. I love Leorio's character to be honest, he isn't strong but I think compared to the rest he has the most developed personality although Togashi didn't even spend much time on him. Even since the beginning he was introduced as a 'flawed' character let's just say, thinking only about money but then Togashi decided to add depth to him. He just reminds me of Kuwabara for some reason although he was most likely designed after him.

I'll try and take your suggestions into consideration, although I already planned to do a lot of the things you said.

And as the writer, I try and stay neutral with the shippings. I try not to ship her with anyone because it kinda let's me think of the character relationships without being biased and taking any sides (because once I ship something then I won't get off that ship). You might have a point with how she truly feels about Kurapika but you just have to stick around and see how it all develops :P

**kri - **They've met and finally caught up too now :D

**xhunterxhunterx -** Having to write the chimera ant arc gives me mixed feelings. I might start crying in the middle of writing a chapter xD Well before I write I have to go and re watch the whole arc for research purposes and because I don't remember every single detail of the arc.

**TangoUnicornA -** Sorry about the anticlimactic ending. Shinatobe was meant to die for no reason, and although it sounds pointless it was supposed to teach Himeko an important life lesson now that she started to trust and open up to people a lot more. And Himeko is smart academically, but she can't do shit when it comes to sports. It's just the way she was raised and she wasn't really required to know any sports so she wasn't taught how to swim. (The only reason why she is good at fighting and running is because of the drug, otherwise she'd be very very weak)

Sorry, I don't really have any plans on turning her into an ant because I can't see myself writing future chapters with her as an ant. If she did, I would have ended the series by making her stay with Palm and the others and she won't be able to go on any more adventures. But heads up, I'll tell you a little secret just because I like telling secrets. If anyone else is reading, you can know too lol!

Remember when I kept mentioning something about a drug that was tested on Himeko, Haruko, Toshiro and Natsume? Assume it was made the same way you make modern day insulin by extracting the insulin gene from an human, inserting it into a bacterial plasmid and putting it back into the bacteria so it could undergo binary fission. Let's insert a gene from another organism, much stronger and faster than the average human being (maybe even a mythical creature) and repeat the procedure to create a drug that could make humans stronger if they survived the side effects. In this case, Himeko and the others are already partially non-human if that's what you wanted and I'll add more about this drug, it's origin and true nature in this arc which is why Natsume and Toshiro are also making an appearance. Haruko's link to the drug will be revealed later on. Also keep in mind that Himeko only entered the exam because she had the drug to rely on otherwise she wouldn't have even gone near the place. But yeah, I wasn't sure what organism or creature the gene could have been extracted from, but you can always assume that it's from a dragon since they do exist in HxH. And yeah, dragons are awesome!

Sorry if anyone had to read through my little bio lesson xD

**Guest from chapter 9 -** That's one theory that blew even my mind xD


	43. Nightmare at NGL I

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 43**

_Nightmare at NGL - I_

_..._

Once the airship landed in the Republic of Rokario, they travelled to the borders of the neighbouring NGL via van. Everyone was quietly sitting inside, listening to the driver talk about his hectic day.

"It's quite odd for anyone to be visiting NGL, just living there would be considered odd." He told them. "After all, the people there believe in living a natural life. Something must be going on though, you are the tenth group I'm taking there today and there were quite a lot yesterday and the day before too."

"Tenth?" Gon asked in surprise.

"Yes, it's been quite busy for us lately." He nodded. "Not that I can complain though, our transport companies have been making quite a lot of profit due to these visits."

Kite wasn't so surprised about the many visits to NGL. Whatever the situation may be, a lot of Hunters would have been hired to find out. According to the driver a lot of teams have already arrived and started their investigations. "Looks like we are some of the last ones to arrive."

"But that doesn't necessarily sound like a bad thing," Himeko pointed out, "I mean if the situation is bad then the more Hunters to deal with it, the better!"

"You have a point, but a lot of veterans like to do things on their own which is why it was so difficult for Toshi and I to find a well paid job," Natsume explained. "They usually have their own group of Hunters just like Kite, so a lot of pros don't like having other pros joining them as they usually like to be in charge."

"That's a really childish reason..."

"A lot of Hunters are still children at heart, while some are just normal children." Natsume shrugged, looking at Himeko, Gon and Killua. "But now that we have a job, I can't exactly complain. Let's just hope the borders aren't as strict as they are said to be."

After travelling through the wastelands, they eventually were able to see two large trees in the distance. The driver proceeded to tell them the little information about NGL he knew. According to him, that two tree in the distance were the borders to enter the place, but there were strict regulations and various physical examinations they had to go through in order to actually be able to enter. The nature loving NGL didn't allow any form of synthetic, man made material inside and the said materials were all banned there, giving any citizens with the possession of one of these objects severe punishments that could even lead to a death sentence. There was even a recent imprisonment of a reporter who was in possession of a few miniature cameras he managed to smuggle in; how he did it still baffled some.

Once they all got off, Gon looked at the large trees ahead of them, "So that's the borders to NGL..."

A large trees, with stairs leading inside a door. For this to actually be called a border surprised Himeko. It looked like any old attraction you'd see in a botanic garden. Well, she expected the borders to look a little more 'official' with proper windows and brick walls because it's meant to be a government building after all. Then again, the meeting place for the Hunter exam was a dark tunnel underneath a run down family restaurant so she told herself not to be so surprised. The government just liked to roll this way!

"Stay alert," Kite warned them ahead of time, before he started to lead the way towards the set of stairs leading inside the embassy, "NGL isn't just the environment loving place they claim to be." Hearing this, Himeko began to worry a little. The place Toshiro described to her was filled with flowers, and people wearing flower crowns on their head greeting them with open hearts. When Natsume described the place, it just felt like a gathering place for hippies. Either way, Kite made the place seem a lot more intimidating and dodgy that she initially thought.

As soon as the team reached the entrance, they were greeted by two men who seemed to be government officials working at the embassy. "What brings you people here," the slightly tanned man questioned.

"There seems to be dangerous, carnivorous organism that infiltrated the area. We are here to investigate," Kite answered. Hearing his response, the tanned man examined each and every single member of the team closely before giving them a defeated smile.

"If you are pro Hunters, then we cannot deny you all entry." He told the crew to follow him inside the embassy, before walking inside along with his co-worker. Kite took a moment to watch the pair of officials before he lead the way inside with everyone else following close behind him.

Inside the embassy, there were tables with computers lined up on either side and other officers staring at the screens in front of him.

_"Didn't Kite say that these people were energy loving people?"_ Himeko asked herself. _"Last time I checked, computers don't grow on trees." _

Before she could whisper her query over to either Natsume or Toshiro who were with her, Killua did her the favour of pointing that out himself. Naturally anyone would be curious. "You are using computers!"

"This place isn't within the borders," the man answered him almost immediately. Although he did have a valid point, it still didn't really feel right to some of them.

_"Hypocrites..." _Himeko thought.

The man continued to explain that these computers and machinery were used for foreign relations, and to exchange information between countries via e-mails as those are a lot quicker than sending out letters. Since machinery isn't allowed inside NGL, there were no places to access the internet inside NGL he went on further after Kite had asked him about it. Of course, he quickly warned them that they were not allowed any cell phones or other electronic devices such a laptops and tablets inside. Clothing pieces such as belts containing metal, plastic, glass and any other man made material weren't allowed past the borders either. Any kind of jewellery; gold, silver along with anyone who has some sort of implants, bolts or silicone inside their body were also prohibited. As the list started to get longer by the minute, some people's patience started to run out.

Himeko started to examine her own clothes. Her shoes had rubber soles, so she had to take them off. Her dress had a zipper so she couldn't wear that either. Leggings were made of some man made materials such as polyester. She couldn't even wear her earrings or hat past the borders. After a quick mental simulation, she concluded that they'd only let her go past the borders if she agreed to go in naked. She tried to think whether there were any spare sets of clothes that were made from 100% organic material, but there were none.

_"If they want us to strip naked then they can just stop beating around the bush and tell us..."_

She wasn't the only one concerned at this point. Spin; the fairly attractive young lady with magenta hair who could be seen chewing a piece of gum every now and then also had some objections to make.

"What do you expect us to do?" She asked in an irritated tone, "Strip just to get past the borders?"

_"Yeah girl, speak out on the behalf of the minority of women here!"_

The man however calmly pointed up a set of stairs. The team looked up and read off a sign. "We have a clothing shop upstairs."

After holding a short discussion, some members of the team went upstairs to select clothes to enter NGL. However, quite a few people had to remain behind because of various reasons. Natsume was included on the list. It was something Toshiro and Natsume had been worried about on the journey to NGL but like they predicted, he couldn't get past the borders because he still had some metal ware in his arm after breaking a bone a while back. Since it isn't necessary to get it removed, he never really bothered with it as it doesn't cause any complications on its own.

"I was really looking forward to this mission," he sighed.

"No one told you to go and shatter your bones, you did it yourself." Toshiro began to nag like an eighty year old woman.

"So he has to stay back?" Himeko asked. "What's the point of him even coming along? He's so useless!"

"How mean..." Natsume pouted.

"There's not much we can do now. I'll take the brat so you should go back with the rest of the team." Toshiro suggested. "Who knows, you might be surprisingly useful."

_"I highly doubt that though..." _Himeko thought.

After a brief conversation and coming up with a plan, Toshiro joined the rest of the remaining team upstairs inside the shops. Himeko stayed behind and took off her earrings before handing them to the worst person possible to look after. "Take care of them."

Although Himeko only wore one pair of her clan's earring as she sold the other in Yorkshin, she did wear a normal stud on the other just to prevent the hole from closing off. Now that Natsume had the earrings in his hand, he decided to take a close look at it.

"How much is this worth?"

"Telling you that would be like putting a wolf inside a herd of sheep. I'm not telling!"

"A lot I'm guessing."

"More than your life. If something happens to it then," she got her point across by doing a throat slitting motion.

"Hm... Interesting!" Natsume started to stare even harder at the piece of jewelry in his hand. "So I'll probably be able to settle down for the rest of my life if I sold it." Himeko gave him a look of disbelief. "I'm just joking, get going then!"

Himeko gave him a quick '_I am watching you_' signal before she turned around and walked towards the staircase. Natsume was surprised to see her stop walking abruptly before turning around and giving him the same sign. Once she got her message across, she climbed up the steep wooden staircase and met up with Toshiro who was still looking for clothing pieces in his size. There wasn't much left for his size, most likely because quite a lot of Hunters his size would have entered NGL on the previous days. Unfortunately for her, there weren't that many clothes for her size to begin with. Getting a visit from a little female Hunter was something they didn't exactly expect. Since there wasn't much choice for her, she was quickly able to pick black coloured jogging bottoms, a loose blue t-shirt and some plain black shoes. Along with that she also found a scrunchy to tie up her hair because the hair tie she wore had some metal on it. She stepped into a changing room and began to change her clothes before trying to fit her normal clothes into her rucksack to leave behind with Natsume.

As she was one of the last ones to enter a changing room, she was also one of the last ones to come out of one. Everyone else had already changed and gathered up; minus Kite who was already wearing appropriate clothing for the mission. Talk about organised! She was carrying her close to bursting backpack out and blinked a few times at the sight of the boys.

"Is something the matter?" Gon asked.

"Full trousers..." she mumbled tilting her head slightly.

"What?" Killua questioned, raising a brow.

"You two are finally wearing full length trousers!" Himeko said in a slightly relieved tone, which offended the two boys a little. "Where are your shorts? Can I have them?"

"What do you need them for?" Killua asked in a slightly disturbed voice. "I hope you aren't the type to collect men's clothes and go sniffing them."

"Men? Which men? I don't see any men." Himeko faked a confused voice, tilting her head once again. "I simply want to see your shorts, so hand them over! Why would I go sniffing dirty clothes that haven't been washed in weeks, maybe even months?" Gon handed his shorts over along with Killua who was a lot more hesitant. "Okay, now please excuse me while I go and burn these hideous shorts and the evidence of these ever existing and being worn by the two of you."

Before Gon or Killua could step in and stop her, Toshiro who finally changed his clothes taking a lot longer in the room than any girl would, grabbed her by the collar and held her back. "What do you think you're doing?" He asked.

"What do you think, I'm going to chuck these away!"

"What are they going to do if they need a spare change of clothes?"

"Don't worry, I'll buy them better and more fashionable clothes!" Himeko guaranteed confidently, giving them all a thumbs up.

"Say that again after you stop living off mine and Haruko's cash," Toshiro told her, "I'll believe you if you actually bought your own clothes!"

"Okay, maybe I lied but I will definitely help them make better fashion choices. It's the least I can do as a friend."

"The least you could do as a friend is hand those back to them," he corrected her, before taking the boys' shorts and throwing them back to their owners, "keep them safe. Don't complain if you can't find them after leaving them scattered around!"

The boys frantically nodded and wasted no time to stuff their clothes into Gon's already full backpack.

One of the workers approached them since they were all done changing now, "please follow me to get your scans done!" He then walked inside a room, expecting everyone else to follow closely behind them.

"Give my bag and yours to Natsume, we can't take them in." Toshiro ordered, handing Himeko his bag. "Take your friend's bag while you are at it."

Himeko clicked her tongue in annoyance before she walked towards the top of the stairs and looked down. "Natsu, catch!" She shouted, before throwing her bag and Toshiro's bag with some force at him, aiming straight for his face and both hitting his head.

"Ouch!" He exclaimed in pain, rubbing the top of his forehead. With Gon's bag in her arms, she tried to walk away and hide it so she could follow her initial plan of disposing their fashion disaster.

"Oi, zashiki warashi*!" Toshiro called her after he caught her trying to sneak out. She stopped in her tracks before throwing the final bag in Natsume's direction; this time hitting the back of his head. (*Zashiki warashi - the ghost of a young child's spirit that usually haunts a house and causes mischief by playing pranks. Toshiro's nickname for Kou as she has pale skin and short black hair, similar to the appearance of one of these spirits)

Toshiro waited for her to join them, just in case she is up to any more trouble on the mission. Once she joined him, the team entered the room full of high tech medical equipment. They all were given a full on medical examination, including X-rays, ultrasounds, MRIs, blood tests and whatnot to make sure that they weren't illegally carrying anything past the borders. Although it took quite a while for them to get their tests done, the hours past quite fast with the kids comparing each other's brain sizes, seeing who has the biggest and most intelligent looking brains, their bone structures and all the other scan results they found surprisingly fun to look at. The physical tests were soon followed by one-to-one interviews. To enter a country with people leading a simple lifestyle, the process was overly complicated.

Himeko was one of the last ones to enter the interview room. Kite was the first one to go in and assured them that the questions were straight forward and both Killua and Gon reassured her too. She felt pretty confident with herself anyway, after all she knows that she is pretty good at dealing with people; that is if she chooses to deal with them. Toshiro on the other hand was the only one nervous when she entered the room as Himeko doesn't exactly use the best vocabulary sometimes.

The interview room was pretty simple. The colour of the wall was neutral, and there was one wooden table in the centre with an empty chair in front of the examiner. The table was pretty much empty, and all the examiner had in front of him was a clipboard and a few sheets of paper. She sat down after shaking his hand and waited for the examiner to proceed with the interview.

"What is your name?" Was the first question asked.

"Himeko Inoue," she answered before she continued to tell him about herself so he doesn't waste more time by asking these basic questions. "I'm thirteen years old, born on december eighteen in Otaka and currently residing in Kioto. I passed the Hunter exam last year and I'm a pro Hunter slash rookie Contract Hunter. Here is my license to proof my identity."

He took the license and verified that it was real before proceeding with the interview. Now that she confirmed all her details, continued, "What is your purpose for coming to NGL?"

"I'm a Contract Hunter, I just go on missions with my seniors. My mission ended up leading me here."

"How long with you be staying?"

"Until we are done."

"How long will that be?"

"Until we complete the mission."

"Yes, but when is that?"

"Until we collected enough information about the ants and come up with a way to deal with that."

"... and how long is that?"

"How am I supposed to know, I've never done this before." She answered. "Even if this mission has been done before, what's the point of us going out there and doing it again to collect the same pieces of information?"

"You have a point..."

"By the way, is the interview done yet? Can I go? I really need to go to the toilet!" She said. "That reminds me, does NGL have proper toilet facilities. I mean sitting down toilets with toilet paper and a proper flush or are they those squatting down toilets? Or do you just do your business in the bushes?"

"NGL has squat toilets."

"What about this place, where is the toilet?"

"It's downstairs, we use squat toilets just like our hometowns in NGL."

"So you basically use old fashion squatting down toilets like NGL, but although NGL doesn't have high tech computers and equipment you still have them? Isn't that a little contradictory and hypocritical of you?" She asked. "I'm curious now, tell me why that is!"

The interview somehow turned tables, and Himeko ended up asking more questions than the interviewer which made him want to pull out his own hair. After Himeko assessed whether NGL was really good enough to set foot on for her, whether their standard of hygiene is decent and whether they have bathrooms with showers, bath tubs and clean toilets, she was satisfied and ready to leave the room with her mind at peace. While she was doing her interview, Podungu who was up next had already finished her interview making everyone wonder why Himeko took so long inside. Judging by the interviewers tired and drained expression, they assumed that she managed to somehow give him hell.

"Next..." he called with fatigued voice. Once they were done, they were finally let inside NGL and stared off into the wasteland ahead of them. With that, Kite announced that the hunt shall begin.

Kite suggested that they'd take a couple of horses with them on the way as it would be a lot faster than just walking. Since there weren't any cars or buses, horses were the quickest way to get around the place. While Stick Dinner and Podungo shared one horse, Gon and Killua decided to take one together as well while Kite had one for himself. Himeko and Toshiro were also going to share one.

"You know how to ride horses, so you do it!" Toshiro said.

Himeko approached the horse that was assigned to them and lightly patted it's face. "You don't have a name do you? I'll call you 'Himeko's loyal servant number two'. Your ancestor number one lived five hundred years ago; that was one horse with quite the temper. It would always try to make me fall off in one way or another."

She started to ramble stories about her days as a so called self proclaimed war hero in the Yeddo period, and her trusty horse that would have died by now not realising that she was talking to a horse that would neigh back once in a while as a response, whether it understood her or not. Whether she noticed or not, she was actually starting to sound like an old women in the body of a thirteen year old, just like good ol' trainer Bisky. Gon stared at her blankly while Toshiro and Killua were judging her hard before one of them finally decided to snap her out of it and point out to her that she had been talking to a horse all this time.

With Kite leading the group just as before, everyone got onto the horses and set off to uncover the mystery of the chimera ants and their existence in NGL. They've noticed that there were two natives following closely behind them, but they didn't think too much of it. They claimed to be interpreters, and decided to tag along in case Kite's team had to communicate with locals but everyone knew that was complete bullshit. Although they didn't look like it, the man and woman following them kept a very close eye on them in case they caused any trouble. Knowing this, Kite and everyone else was able to keep a cool composure since there was nothing for them to hide in the first place.

"How long to you think they are going to follow us?" Himeko whispered over to Toshiro, who was clinging onto her tightly hoping he doesn't fall off if she decides to piss the horse off.

"For our whole stay maybe, unless we try to shake them off on purpose." He deduced. "But if we did that, then they would try to hunt us down and go on a search for us."

Himeko clicked her tongue in annoyance, "I really want to leave them behind on purpose, but it would just end up becoming draggy."

"We may be Hunters, but not every Hunter can be trusted. Some Hunters get their license to avoid a sentence when killing someone and besides, I doubt these people would even trust God if he were to set a foot on this ground. Just ignore them and don't pay a lot of attention to them, try to think of something else."

"What else is there to think about?"

"I don't know!" He shrugged, before looking around. "Maybe you can ask yourself why your friend is standing on a horse over there!"

Himeko followed Toshiro's gaze and looked at Killua standing on the horse behind Gon with his eyes closed, trying to do- who knows what he was trying to do! Killua opened one of his eyes, most likely because he felt two sets of eyes staring at him. When he did open his eyes, he saw Himeko and Toshiro narrowing their eyes at him while judging him.

"What are you trying to do?" Himeko asked in a slightly indifferent tone.

"Horse riding..." he answered.

"I see..."

There was a brief stare off between the three of them before someone decided to interrupt.

"Killua, sit down!" Gon ordered. "You might be hurting the horse."

Next minute, Killua sat down obediently leaning comfortably against Gon's back.

"You associate yourself with some weird people..." Toshiro whispered over into her ear.

"I do, and you are one of those weirdos!" She whispered back.

While riding along the path, some of them noticed the simple lifestyle lead by the citizens. Most of them were working on the fields under the scorching sun, but they didn't really seem bothered by it. To them this was their everyday life and they had gotten used to it all. In order to live, they had to grow vegetables and raise certain animals to feed on. It was very contrasting to the life outside NGL where a phone call could get you food to your door, or where you could go to a supermarket and are able to buy a ready made meal.

Seeing this, they actually thought of something some of the workers at the border said. Even if a problem with the chimera ants were to arise, they would do nothing about it. The predator eats the prey; it's how nature has always been. If the chimera ants are stronger than the humans and choose to include humans as their main course, then so be it for them. It's simply the process of survival of the fittest. However, the source of information didn't exactly feel reliable to them. After all, they claimed to have never come across any giant insects in the country but the man's face said otherwise.

After a couple of hours of travelling by horse, the team decided to take a quick rest by some canyons. Himeko joined Gon and Killua who were having a look at a map given to them at the borders. Gon identified the local villages on the map, "If we check through all the villages and find nothing then we can assume that the ants are not in this country."

Killua remembered the man from the border, "That's true if they weren't hiding anything from us."

"Kite did say the people here aren't exactly trustworthy," Himeko added. That wasn't all, the so called interpreters were on standby in a distance, waiting for them to finish their break. "I guess to them we aren't exactly trustworthy either."

"They are still following us, aren't they?" Gon asked.

They all glanced back to see the pair of interpreters conversing, "yeah..."

"Toshi said they'll probably follow us everywhere we go." Himeko said.

"They are keeping a really close eye on us, I doubt they'll leave us alone." Killua pointed out.

Kite joined in on their little conversation, "I never expected them to be of any help to us in the first place. My gut tells me that this is the place!"

"Then we should keep looking," Toshiro interrupted. "Although the villages here are fairly small, there are quite a lot of them. If this is the place, we should start looking. It's the best for all of us."

Toshiro had a good point. According to the research done by Kite's team, the Queen would lay five eggs after every serving. Not to mention, she eats many times her own weight in just one day. Her immense hunger only assisted to the growth of their ant colony so the sooner they found the nest, the better for all of them. The team took off once again, following the coast line to get to one of the nearby villages. The two locals were still on their case, following close behind them to keep an eye on them. But when a bee appeared and started swarming around them for a while, they stopped in their tracks once they noticed the little white piece of paper it was carrying.

Kite carefully removed the piece of paper from the bee, making sure not to hurt it in any way and opened it up. A map was drawn on there, with something he assumed was blood which was still a bit fresh as it smudged. Whoever has sent this must have sent it in a hurry, not leaving any time for the blood to dry. The map showed the whereabouts of the nests, but that wasn't all. It seemed like a cry for help; a SOS message sent to them. It told them to go and notify the Hunter Association, so whoever sent the note was probably dead by now. Judging from just that, the situation started to turn uglier by the second.

"It will be dangerous," Kite announced, surprising the rest of the team. He was someone who was calm and collected since the start of the mission, but hearing those words from him shocked some of them. They knew this was going to be something beyond their imagination. "But I'd like you to accompany me further."

"Sure!" Gon nodded.

"We are pros after all!" Killua added confidently.

_"But I hate giant mutated insects..." _Himeko thought.

For Stick Dinner and Podungu who didn't have any sorts of Nen abilities, this could be dangerous. Kite advised them to go back to the borders and notify the Hunter Association to take action.

"It's better for me to accompany Stick and Podungu back to the borders," Toshiro pointed out. "We can't be sure what might be hiding around the corners. We need to get the message across to the Association as soon as possible."

"If you could, I'd appreciate that." Kite said.

"What about me?" Himeko asked. "Wouldn't it be better for me to go back with them and for you to go with Kite?"

She was worried that she'd be in Kite's way if she went along because the note written in blood was a serious red flag for her. Whatever was ahead of them was beyond her imagination, so in her opinion Toshiro going along with them as a strong right hand was the sanest option.

"You'll be fine, go with your friends and help them out!" He told her. "Have a little more trust in yourself, if you were completely useless then I would have refused to train you in the first place!"

_"What a nice way to put it..."_

"You are going with Gon and Killua as well, and you all learnt _Nen_ around the same time. Just remember, you are my best student."

"I am also your only student..." she pointed out and sighed. She still thought that it would have been better if Toshiro went, since he was a lot more experienced fighting outside the dojo but now that he mentioned that Gon and Killua are going along she decided to go along. Killua might have known how to fight before entering the exam, but Gon was pretty much on the same level as her when they started off. "Giant man eating bugs, here I come!"

Once she turned around, she saw the boys already stretching ready to leave so she hurried and did some quick warm ups in case she gets left behind in their dust.

"Let me warn you, if you are too slow then I'll leave you behind." Kite warned them, before he put the note away and got off his horse.

Killua was confident in his own abilities, "That goes back at you."

"Yeah!" Gon nodded with the same amount of confidence. "Ready to go!"

Himeko mentally face-palmed at their over confidence. Although she tried not to show it on her face, she was worried that she couldn't keep up with them. After all, there were a couple of days she slacked off instead of going to train with the boys. _"Oh boy..."_

Kite informed the interpreter that she could leave since they will be increasing their speed in a bit. Although she said that her horse could travel much faster, Kite told her that it won't be fast enough for them. After all, _Nen_ users were on a whole other level. After a couple of warm up stretches, Kite informed the trio that they were ready to go and in a flash, they ran off at high speed leaving everyone else behind in their dust. Both the interpreter and her horse were dumbstruck by that.

Now that they were able to travel at a much faster speed, it didn't take them too long to move along. Kite followed the map they received from the bee and they ended up away from the wasteland, at a dense woodland. While following the path through the forest, they came to a hold when they found ripped pieces of fabric on the floor. They stopped and followed the drops of blood and ended up by a puddle of blood with remains of flesh in the dirt. A single shoe, pieces of fabric and a yellow hat were around the fresh puddle. It wasn't rocket science to figure out that the attack on whoever the body belonged to wasn't too long ago. They could also expect the killer to be not too far away from them. However, judging by the remains they could tell that this wasn't the work of a human. Not only did it anger them, but it also disturbed them to see someone or something could do rip a body apart like this.

After looking around closely, Killua found something that Kite very well expected. Next to the puddle, there was a silver bullet casing lying in the dirt. He picked it up to confirm it before informing the others. "There is a bullet casing here."

"Nothing mechanical is allowed here, right?" Gon asked, remembering the amounts of checks done at the borders.

"Considering how strict the borders were, I doubt anyone could get any guns past there." Himeko added.

Kite asked whether he could have a closer look at the casing. "So the underground leaders were manufacturing guns as well as drugs in NGL."

"Is that why we were followed this closely?" Himeko asked.

"That could be the case," he answered. "The higher ups are most likely aware of it all, so the fact that Hunters entered their country could alarm them. But judging by this, it wasn't done by a human. It was most likely done by a chimera ant." Although Gon, Killua and Himeko had a gut feeling that this could have been done by an ant, Kite confirmed their suspicion. They were going in the right direction and getting closer to their nest. But Kite didn't stop right there, "If the ants are using guns, then I'd hate to consider the possibility but the underground leaders might have already been fed to the Queen."

To Kite, NGL and the ants were the worst possible combination. He was already predicting that this could happen at some point, and that the Queen would soon start to crave more nutritious sources of food - humans. But knowing that the genes of these underground leaders would be passed on to the next generation of ants, Kite started to conclude that the ants they were going to come across could be worse than they could have ever imagined. The further they travelled, the worse the situation got.

At that point, a lot of questions were running through their heads. They were sure that NGL was the place they've been looking for, but Kite worried whether they were too late. The ants have gotten quite far and the Queen has decided to feed on humans as her primary food source. The next generation of ants would have genes of the humans residing in NGL but that wasn't all, they'd be a lot more intelligent and would have the ability to learn. They would have the ability to be independent but what worried him the most was that they would be a lot more viscous.

Kite didn't want to waste any more time. He continued to lead the way down the forest path followed by the trio, "It's safe for us to assume that the chimera ants have taken control of NGL at this point. Let's just hope the King isn't born before we arrive at their nest."

However, back in the nest the Queen was still busy nurturing the unborn King. Luckily for Kite's team, the King was yet to be born but that didn't mean that other problems were starting to arise. The Queen's appetite started to increase tremendously, and she requested her soldiers to bring her one hundred humans daily. The ants started to learn more about humans as the days went by and they have finally learned about some humans possessing 'special abilities'. These humans whom they started to call 'rare humans' have caught their attention, and they have decided that these were the perfect food source for their Queen and an even better food source for their unborn King.

After hours of aimless running, the sun was finally starting to set. Kite's team set foot into the first village but it seemed like they were too late. They searched the empty houses in the abandoned villages, only to find the villagers belongings. Judging by the smashed plates, broken doors and destroyed roofs, it was pretty evident that they were attacked all of the sudden out of the blue. There were signs of struggle, but there were no traces of anybody being left behind alive.

Kite, Gon, Killua and Himeko split up to search for any leads in the village, hoping that there would be something to lead them in the right direction. But after an half an hour thorough search, they met back up to plan their next move.

Gon then pointed something out after smelling the air, "Something smells." He took a couple of more sniffs of the air before pointing a couple of meters outside the village. "It's coming from over there!" He lead the way towards an empty horse stall that was outside the village.

_"Iron... Blood?"_ Himeko covered her nose as the smell became stronger. Her suspicion was right when they all looked over to see trails of blood leading from the horse stalls into the deep woods. Judging from the trails, someone had killed them and dragged them along the ground out into the forests. Since this was their only lead to find the ants, the quartet followed the bloody trails into the woods while looking out for any potential enemy. The blood was still a bit wet, meaning the culprit could be just around the corner. With no idea of how strong their enemy was, they had to keep their guards up.

They followed the light out of the forest into an open space surrounded by the dense trees. The blood ended there, and they had stopped walking to look up at what was in front of them. Three horses were skewered on three dead trees with the sun setting right behind them. The smell of the rotting meat made Killua hold his nose, while Gon looked up unfazed. Himeko on the other hand was slightly disturbed by it all and tried to avoid looking at it, only to be scolded by Kite.

"Don't let it distract you, the culprit could be around the corner!" He pointed out. "You can't afford to lose concentration!"

Himeko swallowed hard before she gathered the courage to look up. The animals were impaled from their behinds, the branch coming out of their mouths. Flies were swarming around the decaying matter, feeding on it.

"It looks like morning sacrifice," Gon stated looking at it. Himeko and Killua looked at him, waiting for an explanation. Kite explained that some birds do a sort of ritual by impaling their food on something sharp such as a branch before feeding on it. Gon had just stated that this reminded him of a morning sacrifice done by such birds.

Judging by the size of the horses and considering the fact that these were fully grown ones, the possibility of this being done by a little birdie seemed ridiculous. "I'm not an expert so correct me if I'm wrong, but does such a large bird even exist?" Himeko questioned. "In that case, I hope this birdie doesn't like human meat. I don't want to imagine myself like that..."

"It's safe for us to assume that this is the work of an ant," Kite concluded, "keep your eyes out. Whatever did this was planning on returning back to collect its food."

Not too soon after Kite has finished his sentence, they all heard a voice behind them. "Hey!" At the sound of the voice, the quartet turned around to see the perpetrator step forward. It was unlike anything they've seen before; the white head and legs of a rabbit, and white white wings. He had long, teal hair and a maroon spot on his left eye. One thing was for sure, he was anything but happy about seeing Kite and the others.

Seeing him, Gon, Killua and Himeko were more than just surprised.

"Wha-" Gon exclaimed.

"W-what the hell is that?!" Killua asked.

"Whatever it is, it's going to greet me in my dreams tonight..." Himeko chuckled nervously, trying to keep her calm. _"No but seriously, what the fuck is that?"_

Kite on the other hand kept a calm composure. He expected anything before even leaving for the mission so he was prepared. He was just surprised about the fact that this ant was able to sneak up behind them without them even noticing. The ant was able to conceal it's presence; something Kite hasn't predicted.

The ant remained quiet, but was displeased and narrowed his eyes at them. The kids remained still, waiting for the ant to make its first move, but all he did was continue to glare at them. Finally, they noticed him slowly raising a hand pointing at the trees behind them. "Bastards, those are mine!"

The briefly looked at the horses behind them, realising that the ant mistook them as trying to steal his meal. Before they have a chance to deny the false accusation, the ant charged at Kite whom he assumed was their 'ring leader', but Kite effortlessly dodged. Instead, the ant hit Gon, Killua and Himeko who were still standing there, sending them flying back a couple of meters. They didn't expect the ant to be this strong and were off guard for a moment which resulted in them getting hurt slightly.

Gon held his scraped cheek while in pain, while Killua looked at the bruise on his arm he used to avoid a direct blow. Himeko somehow managed to bite her own tongue when she was hit on the chin and cursed under her breath, _"Fuck, that hurt!"_

While the trio was recovering, the ant's eyes were fixed on Kite who was his prime target. Kite got into a firm stance, trying to intimidate him using _Ren, _and the ant got the message that Kite wasn't a person to be messing with. He understood that Kite was strong, a lot stronger than Gon, Killua and Himeko.

_"He is strong,"_ the ant thought. _"Fighting him won't be easy, I have to watch out for him."_

While in thoughts, the ant got startled when Kite disappeared in a flash and frantically looked around for him, only to see him walking away to one of the trees in the back leaving not only the ant, but also the kids confused.

"Gon, Killua, Himeko," he called their names out one by one, causing them to look back at him. "You three have to deal with this one yourself. He is an ant soldier and we will encounter a lot more like this one on the way to their nest. I'm not going to help you out here, so I'm expecting you all to deal with him yourselves. If you can't, then I'll have you leave here and now. You'll only be in my way!"

His words offended the trio a little due to the fact that he was underestimating them although they accompanied them this far. They weren't just Hunters, they were professional Hunters at this point having received hard training after passing the exam. They looked back at the ant, and their _Nen_ was oozing out, making the ants eyes widen. He had underestimated them greatly all this time, only looking at Kite as the potential threat.

"Didn't you hear us Kite?" Gon asked.

"We are pros too." Killua stated.

"We didn't come here to be guarded by you, we came to assist you on the mission," Himeko added.

The ant took a couple of steps back, now that the trio was slowly approaching them with a much more determined, and serious expression. All three of them charged at him at once, but the ant used his wings to ward them off. Killua who was the closest to him dodged his next attack but was hit by his following attack. Himeko used the opportunity to attack him while she was facing his back, but was sent back flying when the ant hit her with the back of his arm. Gon tried his luck next, by hoping his guard was down when he was dealing with Himeko but the ant once again dodged Gon's punch and elbowed him to the ground.

_"Damn it, he is stronger than I thought!"_ Himeko thought, watching Gon get elbowed._ "It's three against one as well, I might as well use my Hatsu now!"_

Killua had a similar idea in mind, _"I guess I can test that out,"_ he thought. He got up and beat her to it, jumping up in mid air with a spark of electricity forming in his forefinger. The spark extended out, and ended up hitting the ant, paralysing him. "Thunderbolt!"

Kite and Himeko were impressed for a split second. Kite didn't expect his _Hatsu_ to be this well developed while Himeko didn't expect his _Hatsu_ to have gotten this strong in such a short amount of time. While she was blankly stared at the paralysed ant in awe, Gon prepared his next move. "First comes rock," Himeko looked over at Gon when hearing his voice to see him in an unfamiliar position. She saw an orange aura collect in his fists, "Rock, Paper, Rock!"

The ant was struck by Gon, sending him flying into the air. Seeing this, Himeko used the opportunity to her advantage. The ant was still paralysed by Killua, and in the air, away from everyone else thanks to Gon so she could use her ability without hurting anyone else around her.

_"I can't just sit around and let those two show off like this!"_ She thought, before she stood up and confidently smiled to herself._ "After all, I improved a lot too these past months. It's time to show them that!" _She looked up at the ant and got into position, before remembering a small tip she was given by Toshiro to preserve her energy. "Heaven's judgement number two: Aerodi-" She suddenly stopped her attack when she saw a shadow emerge from the trees and caught the ant before flying off. _"What the-"_

They all watched the ant being carried away by a fellow ant that was most likely watching them from a safer distance. The injured ant snapped into consciousness, and fixed his eyes on the trio who were watching him getting taken away. His expression quickly changed, "Ahhhhhhh!" He screamed at them in anger due to utter humiliation, "Bastards, I'm going to eat you! I will, remember this!"

They stayed on guard until the pair of ants were finally out of sight before letting out a small sigh of relief. But something worried them, their attacks were no use. They tried using their fists will little to no success, and Gon's and Killua's attacks didn't cause much damage either. Himeko on the other hand was too slow to even deliver her attack. If she did then she might have been able to defeat him. It didn't bother her before, but her attack did take long to charge, something that might be a disadvantage to her in the future.

"That guy is smart!" Kite pointed out, walking towards them. "He let his soldier fight for him to find out exactly how strong we are." However, the trio remained quiet and kept looking up at the sky in the direction the two ants were headed. "Don't let you heads hang so low, your attacks weren't that bad. All you need is experience."

Himeko sighed. _"So in other words we were useless, but not to worry, we weren't completely useless either!"_

"This is the perfect opportunity to become stronger, but if you aren't prepared then you better stop here," Kite continued before he gave them a warning. "Whether we win or lose doesn't matter. Hell lies ahead of us."

Gon was the first one to determinedly nod, "We are coming!"

"Yeah!" Killua agreed.

Kite looked over at Himeko to hear her response. She let out another sigh, "I guess we should at least finish what we've started!"

Now that she's seen what a mere ant soldier can do, she couldn't help but feel a bit frightened to imagine how strong the so called higher ups could be, but nonetheless she didn't want to quit halfway either. After all, she wasn't only there for herself, she was also there to represent Toshiro and Natsume who couldn't travel any further because of certain reasons. If she backed away now, she wasn't just letting herself down but she was also letting both of her teachers down.

Kite smiled at them all and gave them a nod, "That's what I want to hear!"

Now that they have finally come across an ant and have seen the abilities of one, they knew that they had to look out. They were going to come across more of these ants, and after preparing themselves they moved back into the forest. Time passed as they continued their search for the ants' nest and the moon had finally replaced the sun in the sky. Gon's nose was able to pick up something else, and after following him they found a mass of human bodies dressed in white vests drenched in their own blood.

Killua looked around the bushes and found a couple of guns lying around, "Look at this. NGL was hiding guns all along."

"I expected this before coming here," Kite said. "I never believed a perfect country could exist."

Their attention was diverted from the guns when they heard Gon calling their names. "Kite, Killua. Look at this!" The pair looked up at Gon and Himeko standing on a cliff, looking into the distance and joined them. They have finally found NGL's darkest secret; the drug factory. Knowing that the underground leaders of NGL would have been killed, they had a feeling that there were now ants crawling around in the factory.

* * *

**A/n-** What are you waiting for? There is part 2 of this double update waiting for you ;D


	44. Nightmare at NGL II

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 44**

_Nightmare at NGL - II_

_..._

At night, Kite, Gon, Killua and Himeko finally ended up at a place where some ants could possibly reside at. In front of them they saw lights coming out of the holes in a mountain.

"Could that be their nest?" Gon asked.

But Kite quickly rejected that suggestion, "Ants build their nest using faeces and mud. That must be the factory where guns and D2 are produced." He continued to look ahead before adjusting his blue beret, "Let's go! You will see when we get inside."

The quartet made their way inside and followed the endless empty tunnels illuminated by the light bulbs hung on the sides. They couldn't feel the presence of anyone inside, but at that point they all knew that ants were able to conceal their presence. They couldn't predict how many ants could be lurking around inside so they had to keep their eyes peeled. "Stay on guard, we don't know from where or when they can attack." Kite warned.

They continued to walk down the tunnel until they finally saw it leading into a large room with many machinery. At this point, they weren't too surprised to see all this. After all, they confirmed their suspicion on NGL illegally producing drugs and guns and they have now found the location of manufacture.

"Is this where they-" Himeko began.

"Yes," Kite answered almost immediately, "this is where they produce the drug D2." The drugs were made using an extract from the trees located nearby in NGL which they have encountered on the way. Eighty percent of the worlds Bira trees were located in NGL, so there was no doubt that they were involved in the production of this said drug. Kite briefly explained the increasing problem of the drug spreading through the mainland and being sold in every corner. Just like any other drug, this one was highly addictive and had many adverse side effects.

"Drugs isn't everything they make," Killua announced, standing by an open crate. He took out one of the guns that was stacked inside it and showed it to everyone. "They are the same ones as we saw lying around outside."

"The higher ups must be aware of this, but everyone else in this country joined because they truly love nature."

"Is that why they are so reluctant to let outsiders in?" Himeko asked.

"Yes, that could be a reason."

"So this is NGL's underground. If this place is abandoned, then the ants must have already eliminated everyone here." Killua deduced.

"That's right," Kite affirmed, "and that also means that men with guns weren't strong enough to deal with the ants."

"That makes sense!" Gon thought. "I felt like our attacks didn't work at all when we fought that ant back there."

Killua nodded in agreement, "We underestimated him but he was strong for a mere ant soldier."

"If he is just an ant soldier, how strong would the King be once he is born?" Himeko questioned, not wanting to imagine the strength of the soon to be born King.

"That's why we should get to the Queen before she even has the opportunity to give birth to the King. She needs time and a lot more food sources to give birth to the King, so hopefully we can get there in time."

"What about the boss of the underground leaders?" Gon asked.

Kite just shrugged, "He was either eaten or managed to escape. Either way, the situation doesn't change for us." Before Gon could ask another question, Kite shushed him. "Shh, there is someone around!" They looked into the large, dark tunnel ahead of them and quietly made their way through it until they reached another large room with three smaller tunnels leading out of it. "There is someone in the middle tunnel. There are more in the left and right tunnels."

"_En_?" Killua asked. "How far can it reach out?"

"Forty five metres on average, it can be more or less depending on physical and mental conditions."

"F-forty five?!" Gon exclaimed in surprise. Just extending your Nen to a couple of metres was hard enough, forty five metres was crazy.

_"Wow, even Haruko can only extend his En to twenty five metres after years of training." _Himeko thought. _"The more Kite tells us about himself, the more questions he makes us ask."_

"Concentrate you three!" Kite snapped them out of their thoughts. "Here they come!"

Looking straight ahead towards the middle tunnel, they saw one head emerge from the darkness. The bald head looked up at them; constricted, black pupils with tears streaming straight down. The human crawled out of the tunnel on all fours and came into full sight, and was soon followed with a similar one. Horrific wasn't the right word for it; whoever did this was clearly sick in their heads. They were naked and extremely thin to the point where their ribs were visible. A single, studded collar was around their necks with a grey, chain leash. Their eyes traveled up to see who was holding the other end of the leash, only to see a muscular man, with the body of a horse emerge from the tunnel. His hair was dark blue and just like a snake, he hissed, exposing his serpent tongue.

"What in the world is this?" Himeko asked her team mates, upon seeing the sadistic sight in front of her. The ant in front of them was holding the leash as if he was casually taking the two men on a walk. Pain and agony was clearly written on the pairs faces. This alone was disturbing enough for her to see, but she wasn't the only one disgusted to see it. Even Killua and Gon who were able to keep their calm when they saw the horses as morning sacrifices stood their with their eyes widened.

"Whatever happens, don't look away!" Kite informed them, keeping his usual calm composure.

"Easy for you to say, there are two tortured and naked men crawling on all fours in front of me." Himeko accidentally mumbled her thoughts out loud. "Is this really something I want to be looking at?"

"There are more of them in the other tunnels, don't lose your focus now!" Kite repeated in a more stern tone.

The ant took a moment to observe the four in front of him, "Who are you all, what are you doing in my territory?"

The human-dogs also looked up and finally gained some hope at the sight of fellow humans. They started to plead for help, "P-please, s-save us!"

The ant looked down at his dog that decided to speak instead of bark and started to raise one of his legs, "Be quiet Spot, dogs don't talk!" The ant stomped on Spot, crushing him right there and then with full force, just like stepping on an ant. Ah, the irony! The amount of force used ended up crushing all his bones and ended up in litres of blood pouring right out, forming a large, red puddle. "Oops, I wasn't meant to do that. Oh well, I was getting bored of these dogs anyways, it's time for a pet change!" He looked over at the other human-dog that witnessed the brutal murder of his fellow colleague and looked back at his owner before starting to plead, just like a real dog. "Don't do that Rover, when you beg like that it just makes me want to kill you even more."

Not being able to look anymore, Gon wanted to step in but was stopped by Kite. "There is more than just one of them here. They want you to carelessly walk into their trap!" And just like Kite predicted, three other ants emerged from the tunnels; a mosquito like ant, a centipede like ant, and a slug like ant. Once they were out, their leader said his final good-byes to Rover before raising his hoof.

Gon and Himeko didn't want to see another human being squashed like an ant and looked away when Rover was crushed, making Kite scold them once more. "I told you two not to look away, if they shoot something at you, you wouldn't be able to dodge it!"

Now that both Spot and Rover have been brutally crushed, the ants looked forward at their new potential dogs. "I know, I can just make you four my new dogs. The more, the merrier!"

Gon, Killua and Himeko took their fighting stances, knowing that they could attack anytime soon. According to Kite, Chimera ants have always been aggressive but now that they have been mixing genes of those humans involved in the underground manufacturing of drugs and weapons, they have become even more vicious. It was Phagogenesis, the process of reproduction within these creatures.

"We have to deal with them here and now, if not then many more will die because of them." Kite told the trio. "I will take the one at the back, you three have to deal with the others."

"Right!" The three sung in unison.

"You must fight to kill them, that's what we are here for." Kite continued to tell them. "Don't hold back!"

"Got it!"

Apart from their leader Yunju, the other three charge at them and except for Kite, the trio scattered out to fight one of the ants. While Gon took the centipede on, and Himeko was up against the slug, Killua was the first one to spring into proper action against the mosquito. Being able to fly was one advantage she had over Killua, constantly trying to attack him from above while Killua managed to dodge. Her body was quite thin, so she was very quick.

"Little boy, do you want me to call you Spot or Rover?" She asked before she started to cackle like an old witch. Killua remained unfazed, carefully keeping an eye on her every move in case she strikes again.

_"Don't hesitate to kill!"_ Killua repeated Kite's words in his head.

The ant headed towards him at full speed, "You'll be roving around the ground when I'm done with you, so I'll just call you Rover!"

Killua's expression darkened, "it's been a while since I flipped my switch on!" His large eyes focused solely on the ant, waiting for her to come close enough for him to attack. Just like snakes, his arms moved at an immense speed attacking the ant with no rest and breaking her arms into pieces.

She didn't give up though and retreated before heading in to attack once again, "Curse you!" A sting from her mouth appeared which Killua dodged, but he didn't expect the one from her behind which managed to pierce him. "Fool, the second one was the poisonous one. You fell into my trap!" She continued her cackling, watching Killua stumble in front of her. "Well, does it feel good? The poison running through your body, does it feel good?"

She enjoyed the sight of Killua falling to the ground before she confidently retreated her tail and turned around to take care of the other humans, but all of the sudden she could only see everything upside down. Without her realising, and when she was off guard Killua managed to twist her head one hundred and eighty degrees, before she fell to her knees. "How did you do that?"

Killua turned around, "my body is immune to poison," he answered as if it was no big deal.

"I see."

She then witnessed Killua's finger nails turn into knife like claws. "If you stay still, I'll kill you quickly."

"Oh well, that just means I was the weaker one."

Without hesitation, Killua cut her head off with his sharp claws, watching her blood splatter onto the dull, cement walls and her lifeless body fall to the ground. Yunju and Kite paid close attention to their fight, and with the mosquito out of the way, they turned their attention to Himeko who was fighting the slug like ant.

Himeko stood still, waiting for the slug ant to slowly make his way towards her, just like any other slug. _"Damn this thing is slow..."_

A sadistic smile suddenly crept onto the ants face before he turned around to his boss, "I finally know what we've been missing in our collection of dogs, boss." He announced proudly before looking back at her. "A female pup."

"I've been called all kinds of things before, but rat and dog just take the cake!" Himeko commented, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Wouldn't she just look pretty pleading for her life, wearing a bright pink collar?" He questioned.

"Hey, I always look pretty even when I'm not pleading for my life, so keep that in mind!" Himeko yelled at him. "Also, would you mind hurrying up a little, we don't have all day today! I swear you are like a mix between a slug and a human, so why the fuck are you so slow if you have human genes in you too?" However, after she shouted at him, he just stopped walking. Himeko got ready in case he wanted to attack. After all, she didn't know any of his abilities so she had to be careful. _"Come on, what's your fighting style like, show me!"_

The ant leaned his head back before spitting a large, slimy ball out in her direction, which she luckily was able to dodge by jumping back. Her eyes widened when she was that it was no ordinary slim. The ground started to corrode by the contact of the slug's mucus.

"Eww, that's so gross! Why do I always have to fight the weirdos?" She whined while cringing at the sight of the bright, green slime. "Can't I swap partners with Gon?" She briefly glanced over at Killua who was already done fighting, Gon who was taking his time charging an attack and Kite who was having a stare off with their leader. She sighed, _"I guess it can't be helped now!"_

The ant took the opportunity to attack again, this time firing three shots one after the other. The first one lightly grazed her skin as she didn't have time to react, but she managed to dodge the second and third ones. Once she was in a safe distance, she looked at her arm which now had a burn mark on it and tightly held onto her arm, crying out in pain. _"Shit, that hurts!"_

Seeing her, the ant only laughed out loud. "Did my little puppy get a little boo-boo?"

"Gross," Himeko muttered under her breath, concealing her pain by biting her lip. _"Suck it up and pay more attention Himeko! If you didn't dilly dally right now, this wouldn't have happened!" _She took in a deep breath before straightening her composure again. "Bring it on!"

Himeko got closer to the ant, punching him over and over again with him having no time to return a punch back. However, without her actually noticing the ant started to secrete more mucus the more she punched him and it started to pour out onto the floor, surrounding her and once she was completely surrounded the ant struck, engulfing one of the arms she used to strike him.

_"What the-" _She tried to get her arm out, but it was stuck. That wasn't all, the white mucus on the floor that surrounded her acted as a sort of glue to keep her feet stuck to the ground. "Ewww, why did you have to do that. Now my shoes are all dirty and sticky, oh my god I'm going to punch your face if you don't let go you slimy motherfucker. Why the fuck would you try to eat my hand?" The ant however continued to suck on her arm as he had no sharp teeth to bite it of, revolting her even more. "Oh my fucking god, this is so gross!"

"My body can make and secrete different kinds of mucuses. This one and the green one are just two of many," the ant explained in a muffled voice.

"Well, TMI dude!" Himeko exclaimed as she struggled to get her arm out of "Keep some of these things to yourself! I don't go telling people when I'm on my period do I now?"

"Now I just have to wait for my body to make the yellow mucus that will put an end to you."

"I don't have time to wait, so let go!" She warned.

"Why should I?"

"I'm warning you again nicely." She repeated slowly. "Let go of my arm!"

"I've got you where I wanted, why should I let you go?"

"That's fine with me, Kite wanted me to kill you anyways. Besides, you talk way too much for my liking!" She said before looking back up at him as she finally ran out of the little patience she had. "Heaven's judgement number one: Aeroblast!"

She used the hand that was stuck inside his mouth to deliver her Aeroblast. The air building up in his body also increased the pressure pushing against him until he finally bursted, just like a balloon that was filled with way too much air. On the down side, a lot of the ant's slime got splattered around and some got on Himeko's clothes. But this time she was just too pissed off to even care about it.

She bent down beside the body. "Let me tell you some of the many mistakes you made today. One, you compared an Inoue to a mere dog. Two, you dared to burn even a bit of my skin. Three, you got me dirty with your disgusting slime. Four, you wanted to dress me in a pink collar when blue obviously looks much better on me. Five, you didn't let go when I told you to. Six, you simply managed to piss me off." She stopped to take a break from her list. "Want me to tell you your biggest mistake today? Crossing my path was your biggest mistake! _You_ want to make me _your_ dog?" She just took a moment to snicker at the thought of that. "_Hmph_, quit joking around. Know your place, you pathetic excuse for a living being!"

Once she was done, she stood back up and made her way to Killua who was also done now and kept an eye on her who was the only one in action for the past few minutes.

"What did you talk to him about?" He asked curiously.

"Nothing much, you probably don't want to know either!" She shrugged, forging an innocent smile. He knew that it was something she didn't want to share, so he didn't bother to ask her about it any further.

"You have slime all over you!" He pointed out. Himeko took a good look at her clothing before cringing in disgust.

"Hold still for a second Killua!" She instructed before she wiped the slime on her hands and arms on his clothes.

"Gross, what the hell are you doing?!"

"I left my tissue pack in my backpack because that wasn't organic enough to be brought past the borders," she told him before she continued to wipe the slime off. "Natsu always told me to use my resources wisely."

"I'm your resource?!"

"Yeah, since Gon is still fighting and Kite is intimidating."

Killua snapped, "Stop it, I don't want my clothes all dirty!" But Himeko just ignored him and looked over at Gon who was finally fighting against the centipede.

The centipede ant stretched out his many arms before he started to use them all to punch Gon, "Take this, my unblockable thousand punches." He soon used all his arms to attack Gon all at once at high speed, which Gon managed to block one by one. He then stopped and took a few steps back before attacking Gon once again with the same technique, leaving no space for Gon to dodge this time.

But before he could strike, Gon was able to get away from there and attacked the ant from behind, sending him flying. The ant managed to remain on his feet and slow down. "That was close. You are stronger than I expected!"

_"These guys are really strong!"_ Gon thought. _"They have the hard body of insects, but the intelligence and agility of humans."_

"What are you thinking right now, little boy?" The ant questioned.

"Kite's right, I can't hesitate here!" Gon thought out loud, startling the centipede a little. "First comes rock."

The ant watched as Gon started to charge his attack directed at him and went into deep thoughts on how do deal with it. _"What is this energy flowing through his body all of the sudden? He's a lot stronger than he was a few seconds ago, if he comes any closer then I'm dead!"_

"What, you scared?" Yunju asked him in a mocking tone, diverting the centipedes attention to his leader. He clenched his teeth before looking back at Gon. If he didn't attack Gon, his leader would have killed him for taking too long. He had to act now if he wanted to continue living. He started to calculate the various possibilities of attacks Gon was going to use against him just by looking at Gon's stance. Judging from the stance, he predicted that he would use his fist to punch so he prepared for a counter attack even if he had to sacrifice half his hands just to block his attack. He could always use the other half to hold Gon in place; or so he thought. He smirked to himself, running a simulation in his head of blocking Gon's attack, holding him in place and then injecting poison into him.

After he was confident enough, he used the opportunity to jump at Gon.

"Rock, paper, scissors!"

Instead of using his fists, he simply sliced the ant in half making him fall to the ground and his blood paint the walls.

_"A sword?"_ The ant questioned not being able to believe it. _"Where did he hide that?"_

Once Gon was also done with his fight, Killua and Himeko walked over to watch Kite fight their leader.

"Damn Gon, when did your _Hatsu_ become so good?" Himeko praised to which Gon just chuckled in embarrassment.

"Oh," Gon stopped laughing. "Kou, your clothes are dirty!"

"Gosh, stop pointing it out so much!" Himeko groaned in disgust before she started wiping the remaining slime on Gon's clean clothes.

"Hey! You are making my clothes all dirty!" Gon complained.

"Tough luck, sharing is caring!"

"Keep quiet you two!" Killua shushed them. "Kite is about to start fighting."

The last two standing people were Kite and the ant squadron leader Yunju. "Why don't we have some fun?" He asked. "Entertain me!"

Kite got ready to fight, but before he did he asked Yunju a question. "Tell me, why did you choose this place?"

"What are you talking about?" Yunju raised a brow. "This is my castle, I am King here."

_"There are so many wanna be Kings these days..." _Himeko thought.

"This place was used to produce drugs," Kite continued. "The smell is really strong, doesn't it bother you?"

"What does it matter to you?" Yunju snapped at him. "I am going to start my kingdom here one day and make everyone my subject. I guess I'll start with you all."

"You want to be a king? Someone who treats humans as dogs isn't fit to be king, it disgusts me!"

Yunju charge at Kite out of anger, but Kite jumped into the air and flipped him over onto his side, making it hard for him to get back onto his feet. Kite increased the distance between him and Yunju before Yunju could get back up and attack him once again. When Yunju charged at him again, Kite jumped into the air and kicked him but that did little damage. It didn't take Kite to realise that a squadron leader was much harder to eliminate than the others. He held his hand out and summoned his weapon, a large pole with the head of a clown on one end.

"What's up, you only summon me when you are in trouble!" The clown asked in an excited tone. "What is it, tell me!"

"I have no time to chit chat, hurry it up!" Kite replied.

"Always so impatient, what am I going to do with you?"

The mouth of the clown opened up, and it somehow resembled a slot machine. Numbers from one to nine started spinning and it was eventually starting to slow down.

"What, are you insulting me now?" Yunju questioned furiously. "I'm going to kill you, you bastard!"

"Number four!" The clown announced.

"Damn it, a bad spin." Kite cursed.

"What was that? I have no bad spins, get that in you head ya bastard!"

"Whatever, just be quiet."

After a short argument, the weapon turned into a riffle which Kite used to kill Yunju in a single blow to his head.

"He did it!" Himeko cheered from the sidelines.

Kite took a short moment to complain about his so called bad spin, and how he would have preferred something less noisy before he walked over the the children.

"It's that thing from earlier!" Gon pointed out.

"Yeah, you used it to shoot us!" Killua added. The clown head started to introduce itself as Crazy Slot and started to explain it's function and ability to turn into nine different weapon at random.

"That's awesome!" Gon exclaimed, but his fight wasn't over yet. Behind him, the centipede he cut in half slowly made his way towards Gon, wanting to win his fight but Kite shot him through his head without hesitation as soon as he spotted him.

"Idiot!" Kite shouted at Gon. "Ants' upper and lower body can live on for hours even if separated. Never assume one is dead unless the head is damaged!" The trio looked back at the now dead ant that had been shot through it's head. Kite then looked at Himeko, "You hurt your hand."

"No I didn't..." She lied, trying to hide her burn behind her back because she knew Kite was going to have a go at her.

"You moron!" He yelled, making all three of them jump up. "I told you to keep your eyes open and not get distracted."

He was genuinely worried about all three of them, no matter how harsh he may sound. Himeko guiltily lowered her head and stopped hiding her arm behind her back. Kite watched all three of them fight, so he was fully aware of whether any of them were injured or not. "I'm sorry," she apologised.

"What's the point of saying sorry to me? I'm not the one who got hurt, you did!" He took a closer look at her hand before taking out his water bottle out and pouring some of the cold water over the burn. Although it stung a lot, Himeko remained quiet so Kite wouldn't scold her any further. "There, done!" He put the empty bottle away and sighed. "You children are troublesome!"

"Don't be so harsh on them!" His Crazy Slot interrupted his complaining frenzy. "I bet you weren't any better as a child."

"Oh, just shut up already!"

"Does it talk by itself?" Gon asked, completely intrigued by his ability.

"Apparently," Kite shrugged in reply.

"What do you mean apparently?" Crazy slot questioned. "Of course I talk, why wouldn't I?"

_"What a strange ability..."_ Killua thought.

"And you can't choose your own weapon?" Gon continued to try and satisfy his curiosity.

"No I cannot. I can't change or get rid of the weapon until I used it at least once," Kite explained in a slightly annoyed tone. "How bothersome..."

_"Then why did you choose that ability in the first place..." _Gon and Killua questioned since Kite willingly created the Crazy Slot ability.

Himeko on the other hand was completely drawn by Kite's Crazy Slot ability. She looked over at Gon and Killua, "It's kinda cute, don't you two think so?" Gon and Killua sighed once again but this time at the kind of things Himeko thought were cute. She ran after Kite completely forgetting the fact that she was scared of him a moment ago. "Kite, can I touch him?"

"No!" Kite answered firmly.

"Why not, it's cute!" She whined. "Please, just once. I finally changed my mind about clowns."

"No, it's a weapon not a toy!"

"Ah, come on don't be a party pooper!" Crazy Slot took Himeko's side. "I finally found someone that appreciates me unlike some people, cough cough, you, cough."

"Oh, just go away!"

Kite's crazy slot ability then disappeared making Himeko sulk a little in disappointment. "Party pooper Kite!" Kite on the other hand just ignored her childish complaints and continued to walk towards the tunnel. Gon and Killua looked at each other and shrugged before following the two out through the tunnels. As they walked in silence, Kite began asking the trio about their _Hatsu_ abilities.

"They are much easier to use than mine," he started off.

"Well, compared to your ability they are a lot easier!" Killua said to which Gon nodded in agreement. He then looked over at the still sulking Himeko. "What's wrong with you?"

"My ability doesn't include having a cute and sassy clown!" She continued to complain.

"You are still thinking about that?" Killua asked, mentally face palming.

"Gon, I saw that you incorporated enhancement, transmutation and emission into your ability." Kite pointed out, after observing his previous two fights.

"Yep, but my natural ability lies within enhancement," Gon added.

"Killua and Himeko used electricity and wind respectively. I'm guessing you are both transmuters." Kite deduced.

"My _Hatsu_ isn't that strong yet, and I tend to lose energy pretty quickly." Killua explained.

"My ability is limited based on the location. I can use my _Hatsu_ a lot more in open spaces compared to closed spaces such as this one, which is why I tend to avoid using it unless I'm in a large space." Himeko stated.

"You'll have time to improve, don't worry too much about it." He told them. "Let's keep going, their nest is close by."

Once they were done searching through the factory and establishing that there was no one left there, Kite and his team exited the tunnels and set out to look for the ants' nest. They continued their journey through the forest until they were stopped by some surprise visitors that appeared out of no where, challenging them to a battle.

"We will give you three options, one- choose an order to fight us, two- try to escape from us, three- surrender and let us capture you." The toad like ant gave them options to choose from. He looked like the leader of the many ants standing behind him, grinning at Kite and his team. According to the toad, option two and three would just anger them so he advised them to just go for option one and try to at least survive, making Himeko wonder why he would even give them options in the first place. "What will you choose?"

Gon looked at Kite for a reply but Kite just agreed to the deal. "We couldn't have asked for a better deal. One-to-one fights with their captains will let us determine their strength and will also give you three training. Now, decide on who will go first."

"I will go first!" Killua declared almost instantly, but Gon interjected.

"No, I want to go first!"

The two boys had a brief stare off, before getting ready to battle it out like real men- with a round of rock-paper-scissors of course. But although Gon won their match, Himeko who wasn't even bothered to participate in their little game walked past them and stepped in front of the ants.

"Ever heard of ladies first?" She asked the boys who were dumbfounded by the fact that she had just walked past them onto the fighting ground.

"That's not fair Kou!" Gon started to protest. "You cheated!"

"I didn't even participate in your little game," she pointed out. "You can go after me, the two of you showed off earlier when we fought that ant during sunset. It's time for me to show off!"

"Don't get ahead of yourself!" Killua warned, after noticing that she had been acting a little over confident now.

"Don't worry!" She reassured them before she started to stretch to warm up. "There is a nice breeze right now, it would be a shame not to put that to good use!"

Killua just sighed, "Just let her do what she wants Gon. We'll go after her!" Eventually, Gon settled down too and anticipated the ability Himeko was so confident in.

"Come on, send your fighter to the ring!" She ordered them. The ants wasted no time to draw a quick raffle and determine who was to go first to take her on. They looked at the number on the raffle; number one.

"Number one," the ant called out, to which a grasshopper like ant stepped to the front brimming with confidence after looking at his opponent. There were a few ants in the background complaining about how he was lucky to get the weakest link out of the humans. Himeko just ignored them, focusing solely on the upcoming battle. They were just about to learn how unlucky this ant truly was to come face to face with her. Since the fight with the slug ant back at the factory, she was in fact annoyed at them. Sure, not all ants were the same just like how not all humans were the same. But a lot of the ants were looking at humans as inferior beings, and the thing she hated most was being looked down upon no matter who it was.

"Now, do you want me to end you slowly or quickly?" The ant asked her arrogantly.

"You are quite full of yourself, aren't you?" Himeko asked. "Too bad I'm like that too. Unfortunately, I only like one stuck up person standing on the field, and in this case that would be me. Now, do you want me to end you slowly or quickly?"

Her mocking tone angered the ant, "What?"

"What? Quickly you said?" She questioned. "Very well! Kite, Gon, Killua, stand back a little, there is a storm starting to brew!"

Gon looked up at the clear sky, wondering what storm she was on about, but nonetheless the boys all took a couple of steps back leaving enough space for Himeko to make her mess. They all watched eagerly as none of them have actually seen the true extends of her _Hatsu_.

"Now, this is Himeko Inoue your cute weather girl with tonight's forecast." She introduced herself cheerfully while pretending to hold a microphone. "The weather for tonight looks pretty awful, you would have rather stayed back home. Along with a cold, chilling breeze that will creep up your spines, there will be a very bloody, red rain along with some heads hailing down. I hope everyone's brought along an umbrella!"

Gon and Killua mentally face palmed as they had expected something big to happen, but her introduction and her weather forecast in particular did turn some heads.

"You little bitch, you are mocking me!" The ant ran at her at full speed. Himeko got into her stance and started charging her attack in one of her palms. Kite, Gon and Killua observed closely as a gust of wind started to circle on her hand and formed a disc, becoming bigger by the second.

"Heaven's punishment number two: Aerodisc!" Once it was fully charged, she shot the disc in the ant's direction, cutting his body vertically before continuing to do its job by cutting some of the unfortunate ants and nearby trees and returning back towards her at full speed, once again taking down anyone and anything in its way. The boys watched curiously to see how she would stop such a big disc. "Heaven's punishment number one: Aeroblast!" Her attacks then cancelled out after a huge explosion. She then casually walked back to her side. "I'm done, Gon you can go now."

"Wasn't that a little to quick?" Killua asked.

"I dunno," she shrugged. "It was nice and windy, so I just decided to use it. I just accidentally cut some firewood and got rid of any ants that were in the way, but oh well. If not me, you guys would have done it anyway."

"I guess, but you gotta work on your naming. What kind of a lame name did you come up with? It's fricking long too!"

"Lame? It's a cool name! You are just jealous because you lack creativity." Himeko shot back. "What did you call yours? Thunderbolt? What are you, Pikachu? I swear that violates all kinds of copyrights."

"It's a practical name!"

_"Interesting, she used her second attack to cancel out her first when it got too big for her to handle herself." _Kite thought. "How long did you work on it?"

"The disc?" Himeko asked before she started to think a little. "It took me quite a while to figure out the right angle to throw it at so it comes back like a boomerang, and then I had to modify the shape of it so it's faster and more practical. It took me around four to five months to get where I am today!"

"I see what you meant by it being limited, but it's useful when you are up against a lot of opponents." Kite complimented her before he proceeded to insult her. "It has a lot of flaws, but if you created it a couple of months ago then it's understandable."

_"Did he compliment me first just to make me feel better about myself before insulting me?"_

While they were all too busy talking, Gon stepped forward as he wanted to go up next. "I'm next!" He announced. With him up, the ants drew the next number from the raffle. At this point they were a little quieter than they were before. They greatly underestimated Himeko who looks the weakest out of everyone so they had to be wary of Kite, Gon and Killua. The next ant was called up to fight.

"Number six."

When the number was called, an armadillo looking ant; Baro stepped forward. "Lucky me," he grinned, looking at Gon. Gon however wasn't afraid of him and remained undaunted.

"How are we going to decide the winner?" Gon questioned.

"Isn't that obvious?" Baro asked. "The first one to die is the loser."

"Can't we just surrender?"

"What?" Baro raised a brow in annoyance. The other ants that were waiting in the side lines were also slightly confused and kept looking at each other hoping that someone had an idea of what Gon was trying to do. Was it a cheap trick, or was this human just insane?

"Deja vu!" Himeko blurted out loud, reminiscing the exact same words being said by the exact same person during the Hunter exams. "He said the same thing to Hanzo during the Hunter exams and ended up with a broken arm."

Killua sighed thinking back a year ago, "He hasn't changed one bit!"

Baro continued to grit his teeth in anger. "If you lose, we will feed you to the Queen. If you don't fight us, you are guaranteed to lose and be killed by me."

"That's fine!" Gon said. "But there is no need for you to die. I don't want to eat you once I beat you either." For some reason, Gon's serious tone made Killua and Himeko crack up in the back. Gon was being Gon, there was nothing unusual about him or anything he had just said. But it's just his logic that made them laugh. The ants wanted to fight them so the losers get fed to the Queen. Gon was confident in his victory, which is why he was indirectly telling them to just surrender and go away so they don't get themselves hurt. It's not like they were going to eat roasted ants once they were done with them. Gon continued, "If you surrender, I won't hurt you. But if I beat you, you have to promise not to eat any more humans, understood?"

Himeko continued to be amused by Gon before shaking her head. _"Not gonna work Gon. That's like asking a lion to turn vegan!"_

Although the ants watching in the back were laughing, and mocking their fellow member by pointing out that Gon was not taking them seriously, Baro was starting to lose his patience. "I will kill you!"

He rolled his body up into a ball and charged at Gon with full speed. Gon jumped to dodge, resulting in Baro crashing into a nearby tree. Baro didn't waste time to get back onto his feet and rolled back up to charge at Gon once again.

_"He is using the same attack." _Gon thought. He dodged to the right, but Baro used his tail to divert and crash right into Gon. Gon was slammed against a tree with force, leaving a large imprint on the tree. Although he was hit, Gon got back up on his feet. "I'm fine."

"You are a tough one," Baro complimented. "Other humans vomited their organs at this point. Not that it matters, I just need to hit you a few more times. You can't dodge my attack!"

Gon took a moment to observe his opponent and thought. He was right, there was no way for him to dodge Baro's attack as he could just divert his direction using his tail. But he had to find a way to stop him.

_"What will you do, Gon?"_ Kite asked.

"We don't kill humans to feed them to the Queen," Baro stated. "We find pleasure in killing them. I love seeing them vomit out their organs, I love the sound it makes."

Gon cut in. "That's not funny."

"To me it is!" Baro prepared to charge at him once again with full force. He rolled back into a ball and headed towards Gon. However, Gon increased his _Nen_ and now that he was a lot stronger, Baro used his tail to increase his speed before he tried to slam into Gon. But Gon used brute strength to stop him with his bare hands, picking him up and crushing his shell like egg shells making Baro scream in agony. Once Gon was done, he set the lifeless Baro on the floor before he headed back to his side of the field.

_"Dayum!"_ Himeko's eyes widened. _"Gon has really improved a lot, huh?" _Her thoughts were interrupted when Killua stepped forward.

"We don't have much time to waste with you people. Who is my opponent?"

_"And Killua is still so full of himself. Typical!"_

The raffle was drawn once again, and this time number three was called up to fight Killua. Killua was just being his usual, confident self. Well, why wouldn't he be? If Himeko and Gon could take them out so easily, so could he. His opponent was Rhino who was just as confident as Killua.

"I'm going to wipe that smile off your face!"

"Oh, I'd like to see you do that."

"Listen up!" He said before pointing at the ants Himeko and Gon defeated. "I am nothing like those two pieces of trash. I am ten, no twenty times stronger than them."

"That's nothing to brag about, they were weak!" Killua pointed out cockily.

"What was that? Want me to show you hell?" Rhino started a full on verbal argument with Killua, trying to get the point across that he is a lot stronger than the other ants around him. Well, he just claims to be stronger. Killua thought otherwise, he just thought his opponent was overly confident.

Not wanting to waste any more precious time, Killua started to battle by using a technique he hadn't used in a long time; the rhythm echo. Many after images of him were left there side by side, and Rhino tried to punch the one he thought was the original but they all ended up being fakes. Killua tried to sneak up on him, using his claws to pierce a hole through his chest but failed. Rhino had a hard armour which was too hard for Killua to get through.

Rhino grinned. "My body is surrounded by hard skin. You can try all day and not get past it."

"Oh really?"

Killua took that as a challenge and aimed his thunderbolt at the same place on his chest over and over again, until a crack appeared on the area. With the armour finally broken, Killua used his claws once again to pierce a hole through his chest, making Rhino fall dead to the floor. The fight ended fast.

"Is there anyone ten times stronger than this guy?" Killua asked mockingly. Kite stepped forward and summoned his weapon before the ants could decide on who to send up next.

_"These Captains were all beaten fairly easily by all three of them. Am I worrying over nothing?" _The spinner of Crazy Slot spun until it slowed down and finally ended up on number two. His weapon was chosen, it was a large scythe. "Damn it, another bad spin!" The trio remained behind watching Kite carry the giant scythe to the centre. "Gon, Killua, Himeko. I want you three to jump in three seconds!"

Gon, Killua and Himeko waited and counted to three.

"One."

"Two."

"Three."

On three, they jumped up high and all they heard was the sound of the metal scythe slashing whatever came in it's way. Due to the fog, they couldn't see the damage done until they got back onto the ground only to see the remaining ants lying dead on the floor along with the trees in a couple of metre radius range being in half.

"The scythe can be only disappear once I've used it." Kite complained. "What a drag..."

_"Then why did you choose the power in the first place?"_ Killua wondered once again.

"Ah!" Himeko picked up her pace to try and catch up with Kite. "Can I at least touch Crazy Slot once?"

"No, it's not a toy Himeko!"

"I know it's not a toy! Let's make a deal then." She suggested. "I'll show you my Aerodisc if I can touch your Crazy Slot once. It's a good deal if you ask me, you seemed pretty interested in my ability as well."

"I don't want to see your Aerodisc!"

"Sorry little lady," Crazy Slot apologised on Kite's behalf. "Kite is a party pooper."

"You just called me little lady..."

"Yes, I sure did!"

Himeko stopped walking abruptly. _"Kyaaaaaah, so cute!"_

"Kou... are you feeling alright?" Even Gon was starting to get weirded out by Himeko's new found obsession over possibly the weirdest conjuring ability they have ever seen.

"She needs help," Killua commented. "Urgently!"

"I don't need help, I'm perfectly okay!"

"You are being a total fangirl."

"I don't mind being one..."

"What's so bad about fangirling over me?" Crazy Slot asked. "At least the little lady knows how to appreciate all the good things in life!"

"Oh, just shut up!" Kite demanded. "Get lost!"

"Yeah, yeah."

"We have to pick up our pace, we have to get there before the Queen gives birth to the King!"

Kite lead the way with Gon, Killua and Himeko right behind him through the forest. Kite used _En _to confirm that the ants were still watching them and were heading straight at them from both left and right. He informed the trio following him and told them to keep an eye out for any ants that were on their way to attack them. However, the attacks Gon, Killua and Himeko were using had little effect on the ants. There were trees everywhere that were getting in their way. They still tried their best to keep the ants away from them, but Kite suspected that there might be something more to this. These ants could be leading them all to a trap- no, they were most likely leading them all to a trap.

Leol, the ant resembling a lion was hiding in a field of grass, waiting for the four humans to arrive and ambush them with one of his subordinates, Hina. As the self proclaimed king of the jungle, he was lurking around ready to burry his fangs into one of them. Just like Himeko said earlier on; NGL is full of wanna be Kings! While waiting, they were surprised when his subordinates came crashing down right in front of him with Kite coming into appearance with a scythe in his hand along with the three kids closely behind him.

Kite's intense stare started to intimidate the so called King of the jungle and after a quick thought, he decided that he wasn't fit to fight him. Not yet that is; he wasn't strong enough to beat him.

"Forget it, we are leaving." Leol stated, before he decided to walk away.

"Huh? What about our feast?" Hina, the little girl with wavy blonde girl questioned.

Leol just ignored his subordinates question and kept walking. Unlike other ants, he was smart. Smart enough not to jump straight into battle without predicting the outcome. But then again, that was the difference between mere captains and the squadron leaders.

"He understood that he was outclassed and backed down." Kite thought. "He was most likely a squadron leader."

Leol took a moment to look back at Kite once more. He knew he wasn't strong enough right now, but he also knew that the ants were blessed with the ability to learn. Even the lion was outclassed in the jungle, but that didn't mean the lion was ready to give up his title.

"They are gone..." Himeko said, as their silhouettes completely disappeared.

"We are following them!" Kite announced, surprising the trio. "They are going back to their nest. If we follow them, they will lead us straight back to the Queen." Just like that, they slowly followed Leol and his subordinates who were heading straight. Kite used his _En _to keep track of the squadron leader, making sure not to lose sight of him. After all, he was the only lead they have to get back to their nest. His ability too keep up his _En_ for the entire night amazed Gon and Himeko. According to Killua, _Nen_ masters can reach their En in a fifty meter radius so Kite was nearly there. But then again, they had to consider the fact that he was continuously using his _En_ without any breaks.

After clearing Greed Island, Gon and Killua were immediately led to Kite, as if it was planned. Ging created a billion jenny worth game just to train Gon into becoming a professional Hunter before sending him to meet Kite straight after. He wanted them to learn from his probably only pupil Kite who had proven himself worthy to be called a real pro Hunter. But Kite interrupted their conversation. He told them that he didn't have any intentions in training them, he simply took them along on the mission because they could be of some use, which they were. He made it clear that from here onwards, their resolve was going to keep them alive. If it was strong enough, they would get stronger after each fight and learn in battle. If it was weak, they'd end up on the Queen's silver plate. But there was one thing Kite made very clear to them: A real Hunter always gets their prey.

A battle involved both a Hunter and the prey, and a hunt is successful if the prey is captured. But there are also some rules a Hunter had to follow while being on the hunt, which reminded Gon of his first meeting with Kite. Kite hit him for stepping into the territory of a foxbear, although it had clearly marked its territory. It was something Ging never taught Gon, but Kite taught him instead- no Ging taught him through Kite. Although neither Ging and Kite were alike, Ging did manage to rub off on Kite.

While thinking of Ging, Kite remembered something important. He stopped walking and reached for something in his pocket before handing it over to Gon.

"A Hunter's license?"

"Yes, it's Ging-san's." Kite nodded.

"Ging's?"

"Do you remember what my final test was?" Kite asked.

"Yes, it was to find Ging."

"That's right, before the test began he told me to use this to find him. I was actually going to return it to him when we met up again."

"Why, wouldn't he take it back?"

"No," Kite shook his head, "I just forgot to return it to him." The fact that Kite out of all people forgot something so important caught them off guard, but that just showed how excited he must have been to finally pass Ging's test. After all, according to Natsume every real Hunter is still a child at heart. "If you don't mind, could you return that to Ging-san once you find him?"

"Sure!" Gon beamed. "But before that, I have to help you with this mission and get stronger. Then I can finally go off to search for Ging and return this to him."

Kite finally showed a smile on his face, "I'm counting on you."

_"Gon's dad sounds like the ultimate troll, but thanks to him Kite became this strong."_ Himeko thought before looking over at Gon. _"Gon might be on Kite's level once he finds his dad."_

"Let's keep moving, we don't want to lose the trail."

"Right!"

They started following their trail once again, but didn't get too far before Kite stopped once again with a disturbed expression on his face. Thus far, Kite hadn't broken a sweat but now beads cold sweat started to appear on his forehead. _"A monster!"_

Gon, Killua and Himeko also stopped walking, wondering whether they had finally reached the ant nest. But there was a completely different reason behind it.

"Gon, Killua, Himeko, run!" He ordered all of the sudden, shocking the trio. Something made Kite look this distressed, it just didn't feel right. "Hurry up will you!" At this point, they didn't know what he was talking since none of their _Ens _could reach that far out, but they started to worry. "Get away from here!"

Out of no where, a cat like ant with permed silver hair, a navy blazer and orange shorts appeared and in that instant, Kite's arm was gone and was sent flying meters away. The ant took a moment to look back at the trio, fully opening her large, orange eyes and sending a malicious aura their way. She was strong; way too strong for all four of them to take on. Her _Ren_ alone was crushing them and kept them far away from her, but that didn't stop anger building up inside Gon. The more he looked at Kite's single arm lying on the floor, the more furious he became. He finally snapped, leading to his aura pouring straight out of him which started to catch the attention of the ant.

Kite was watching Gon release his aura, mentally cursing at him. He told them to run away, but all three of them were frozen stiff in front of the ant. Killua looked over at Himeko whose eyes were still fixed on the ant, and completely numbed by her vicious aura. He was the only one who could stop Gon before he gets himself killed, so with brute force he knocked Gon unconscious.

"Good decision, Killua!" Kite praised him, before looking at the ant in front of him. "Killua, Himeko, take Gon and leave. Notify the Association!"

Without hesitation, Killua tugged Himeko's shirt to snap her out of her daze before fleeing. Himeko glanced back at Kite and the ant that was staring back at her, before unwillingly leaving the scene too. With them out of sight and a safe distance away, Kite initiated the fight against the ant by summoning his weapon.

Himeko and Killua were running back to the borders in the rain, cursing at themselves. Killua finally realised he was being over confident. The more ants they fought on the way, the more he started to underestimate their strength. These were highly dangerous organisms; something Kite claimed to be a biohazard. That ant they saw knew Kite was the strongest out of them all, which is why she chose to attack him instead of any three of them. Even Kite who lost an arm was stronger than all three of them combined, and the ant knew that too. The fact that they accompanied Kite didn't change anything. Kite would have ended up this way even if he came alone, so in the end they were all useless. _"This is reality. We were fools not to realise it sooner!"_

Killua was agitated, but he was still calmer than Himeko. All she did was follow Killua, still thinking about _that thing _they encountered not even a minute ago. The ant's _Ren_ wasn't like anything she had come across before. Hisoka, Illumi, the Phantom Troupe; would all their aura combined even be this strong. She could still feel her intense _Ren_ from miles away, lingering on her skin and sending an ice cold shiver down her spine once in a while. It felt like she was being eaten alive just standing near her; a predator feeding on its prey or in this case, a cat feeding on a tiny, helpless mouse.

An hour had past, and the two were finally able to slow down. The sun rising, but neither of them had spoken a word about that incident, let alone about anything else. The thought of Kite's arm being ripped off so effortlessly by the ant still haunted them, but it also made them wonder whether Kite would be able to survive this. He didn't lack skills or brains, he was a real pro, but was that really going to be enough to beat whatever they were up against an hour ago? In the worst case scenario, Kite may already be dead and fed to the Queen.

Himeko lifted her head and looked at Killua who was still carrying Gon on his back in silence. She didn't even have to ask, she knew exactly what he had been thinking over the hour. The same questions were running through her head too. The ant they had encountered a while ago didn't seem like the King, but if that wasn't the King, how strong would he be? Who was that ant, and why did she suddenly decide to attack them? Why was she so much stronger than the other ants they had fought? What happened to Kite?

"Hey, Killua." She finally broke the hour long silence. "I'll carry Gon from here onwards, you should rest a bit."

"There is no need, I can carry him myself." He answered with no second thought.

But she still insisted. "We've been running around the place for a whole day without rest, you must be tired."

"I said I'll carry him myself," he raised his tone. "Just spend your energy paying attention to where you are going, I can't afford to waste my time looking around the place for you if you get lost. Don't get in my way!"

For a moment his words made her feel completely useless, although she trained so hard over the months not wanting to be left behind by anyone. Mere words were able to completely shatter her confidence, but deep inside she knew that he didn't actually mean what he said. He wasn't angry at her, he was frustrated at himself for being weak, and for leaving Kite behind. He didn't know what to tell Gon, how he could tell him that they left his father's dear pupil behind. No matter who it is, it's always easier for someone to take their anger out on someone else. Killua was an intelligent individual, but he was no exception.

Himeko swallowed hard, before she picked up her pace and blocked Killua's path. "It doesn't matter, I'll carry Gon and stay close behind you, so just lead the way!" She stated firmly, but Killua was still hesitant. A small smile formed on her face, "He's my friend too, just trust me."

Killua sighed in defeat and handed Gon over to her before quietly continuing to lead the way back. Himeko stuck close behind him while carrying Gon on her back, but she chose not to speak any more. There was nothing else for her to say anyways, so what was the point? It would be better for the two of them to remain quiet instead of getting into a real argument. It didn't take them too long to get back to the two trees bordering the place, and they safely exited NGL. Himeko sat the still unconscious Gon against a tree before she also sat down right next to him hoping she could soon regain her breath. Killua took out his phone to inform Kite's team of their return without Kite. Dozens of questions were thrown at him which he was unable to answer, but in the end they were told to stay put and wait for the reinforcement headed their way.

There was silence, and all they could do is wait. Once they saw the van headed their way, they didn't know what to tell them. Their heads hung low in shame as they watched the reinforcement climb out of the van. They were surprised to see one familiar face amongst the three; someone they wouldn't have thought would come this far just to take care of a couple of insects. Chairman Netero was accompanied, by a pale man with black hair dressed neatly in a black suit, wearing glasses. The other man was much taller and a lot more muscular, with long white hair, wearing shades and carrying a large weapon on his back.

"What the hell is this, they are just kids!" The muscular man exclaimed in surprise. "Who sent kids out here to play around? Go back home!" Whoever this stranger was, neither Killua nor Himeko took a liking to him. He was clearly making fun of them, not knowing the true strength of the ant they had encountered inside NGL.

"Stop it Morel, you shouldn't bully them." The man in the suit interjected before adjusting his glasses. "After all, they are just little children." Morel was bluntly mocking them, but on the contrary Knov was indirectly sneering at them. Neither of them was better than the other, and all the two could do was sit still and listen to their insults.

"You two look pretty defeated," Netero gave them a whole hearted laugh. "Was the enemy really that strong?

One after the other, they were taking turns to ridicule them. Killua clenched his fists in anger. They didn't know how strong the enemy was themselves, they won't know until they come face to face with them. He got the courage to tell them that the aura they came across was stronger than his brother's, Hisoka's and anyone's he has ever seen. He even bravely told them that although all three of them were strong, the ant from earlier could easily take them all out.

Knov adjusted his glasses again, "You are currently in a state of panic after encountering someone stronger than you. Humans tend to lose the ability to judge things correctly when that happens."

"See Knov, you aren't any better than I am." Morel laughed at Knov's harsh words. The two were fairly confident in their own abilities, insisting that Killua and Himeko were misjudging the ants true strength in the first place. Either that, or they were just pointing out how weak they were. "The moment you two escaped the fight, you were disqualified. You aren't losers, you are lower than losers."

"That's enough Mor-"

"No it's not!" Himeko cut in. "Go on, continue rubbing more salt onto the wound. It must be fun seeing two sore losers sulking in front of you, huh?"

"Stop it," Killua interrupted her before she could say anything else. She stopped talking, angrily gritting her teeth. After all, they were all this confident when they first entered NGL too, these three may be a lot stronger than them but in Himeko's opinion, their overconfidence got the best of them. It made them grief a lot more than they should have.

"You have a really bad temper there," Morel pointed out. "Why don't you use that energy to help around at home doing chores and leave this to us. Go home and rest, we'll handle the situation here."

Netero looked over at Gon who was still out cold, "Is he asleep?"

"He was about to attack the ant, so I struck him to stop him." Killua explained. "I didn't have time to control my strength, so I don't know when he will wake up."

"I like that kid!" Morel grinned. "He is a lot more promising than the two of you."

"Morel, that's enough!"

"If we send fighters who aren't strong enough, we will only strengthen the enemy," Netero told them. "Do you understand where I'm coming from?" The pair quietly nodded before watching the three confidently enter the borders to NGL. They spent a moment trying to absorb everything that had been said to them. Even Netero's last words were an indirect backlash at them. They were told to go back to a nearby village and stay there. If they wished to continue fighting, they had to first prove themselves to be strong enough to even step foot into NLG again. He set them a challenge if they wanted to continue, but Netero continued to emphasise the fact that he didn't want weaklings fighting by his side. He gave them the options, but the choice was up to them.

Himeko was the first one to stand up and carefully lift Gon onto her back, before she quietly started to walk towards the van. She didn't make her choice yet, and the more she thought about the ants, the more it frightened her. She didn't want to go back, but at the same time she didn't want to leave this mission incomplete. Gon's choice was clear, and she was ninety five percent sure that Killua was going to join him. But was there really a point in blindly following her friends to her possible end?

It wasn't a choice to make in an instant, she had to seriously think about it over and over again. She had to ask herself whether she could meet Netero's expectations in a month and be ready to step back into hell. After all, to her it all seemed like a very bad dream.

* * *

**A/n- **Sorry for the absence, I honestly wanted to update weekly but I had visitors over for a couple of days, and I had to rewatch the series to start this arc, which my friend actually got me to do. It was actually her idea to do this double update to celebrate me reaching 100 follows and 100 reviews. It was supposed to be one whole chapter, but ain't anyone got time to read 20,091 words in one go xD So I just split it into two chapters so it's easy for you guys to read and absorb and so you can also take a break between reading. So yeah, I worked over a few days to write these two chapters as a (lame) thank you present. (lol I know I'm so cheesy...)

Well anyways, I really want to thank you all for the support! It still surprises me to think that this many people actually read this fanfic. I do hope I did a good job editing these two chapters, I'm so tired -_-

Also, question of the day for future purposes. Who is your favourite OC so far? Can be a reoccuring OC, doesn't have to be Himeko because she swears like a sailor and it can also be OCs that only appeared for a few chapters. Why you asking? Well to create OCs for future non canon arcs!

**Review corner :**

**Lucas Nee-chan (formerly Yuki nee-chan I think)-** Thank you for your review, I can't wait to write the election arc and give Leorio and the Zodiacs (mainly Pariston) some spotlight. Unfortunately Himeko won't do much that arc physically but there will be quite a few secrets revealed!

**SlightlyYandereMelissa-** First of all, sorry to keep you waiting. You can read the reason for the delay above somewhere. Also, thank you for checking out the collab fic and reviewing :D. I'm glad I could make you laugh before all the shitty things started to happen. Also, you asked a question to Himeko so she shall make a special appearance and answer your question.

_Himeko: Tonpa, Tampon, same thing! At least a tampon has some use while the other thing just waste precious space and oxygen. _(And this ladies and gents is a prime example to why Himeko isn't allowed in the a/n section of chapters)

**Renaglory-** Thanks for the sweet words, and unfortunately Hime K's, and Summer I's song didn't do so well on the charts so they are on hiatus. (yes those are their rapper names I randomly made up right now). However, they do appreciate your support. (I feel like their managers lol)

**Queechi-** RIP. May your poor soul forever haunt Himeko and Natsume for forming a duo.

Also too late, me rapping is like me doing stand up comedy. I get laughed at for both of them; although one is good and one is bad.

**Silverlove- **No it's okay, if someone takes their time to write a review then I should do the same and reply to it! It just feels fair to me that way. For now, I have no thoughts of abandoning this fanfic but once school starts updates might be a little slow. Either way, I want to finish this off and hopefully finish writing the sequel I've planned out as well. I was never good at writing, but I did improve over the months so I can't say that I'm a natural talent at writing (although I wish I was).

Also, making an account saves you the hassle of constantly having to check for updates daily. It just e-mails you whenever someone has updated so I guess that's a plus! You can PM me if you want to because honestly, I'm such a loner on this website. I hardly talk to people OTL.

**xhunterxhunterx-** Typical Himeko giving her typical response!

**TangoUnicornA-** I don't blame you for not remembering the drug, she hasn't used it much after learning nen so the last time she mentioned it was looooong ago. Oh, she learnt not to trust everyone around her. The people Shinatobe considered as her friends ended up turning their back on her when she needed someone to speak up for her.

Also, when I watched the 1999 version before the 2011 version, I kinda preferred Killua but then I just grew fond of Gon. He's just so cute, I want to adopt him although I'm financially incapable of taking care of myself let alone a kid that eats a lot more than me. Why I'm writing a KilluaxOc fanfic? I honestly can't picture Gon liking a girl romantically until he grows up a little. He's in love with adventuring, and solely focused on finding his father. Maybe I should write a grownup GonxOc fanfic sometime in the future...

**Random person-** Here are two updates that would have hopefully kept you busy! Thanks for your review. - sincerely, another random person on the internet /slapped.


	45. Netero's Condition

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 45**

_Netero's Conditions_

...

While in the van, Killua and Himeko spent some time thinking. Netero made it clear that they weren't desperate for help, they only wanted the strongest fighters. Weak Hunters would only strengthen the enemy; that was the sole reason he only took two fighters along with him. But now that they thought about it again, Netero didn't class them as completely useless. He tried to motivate them to get stronger by being harsh on them and giving them a good slap to reality. Netero gave them a second chance, they had one month to prove themselves before they were allowed to go back to NGL to fight. Two assassins were sent to the nearby town to take on the trio so in the end two of them can proceed to fight with the Chairman.

The van eventually came to a hold once they arrived at the town and the two were getting ready to leave along with Gon.

"I'll take over carrying Gon." Killua told her, before carefully lifting Gon up on his back. Himeko said nothing in reply and got out of the van before asking people for directions to the town hall. According to Netero, there was a notice board at the town hall where they could find a message from the two assassins if they wished to fight them.

_'To Killua, Gon &amp; Himeko - Will you fight us, or will you run?'_

The pair spent a moment to stare at the message left for them, and Himeko was the first one to move away and look around the large hall in the hopes of finding whoever could have possibly left the note for them. Only two people were allowed to pass out of the five of them, so she had little hope in one of those two people being her. She looked back to see Killua still staring at the message on the board, before picking up a piece of chalk and writing a reply underneath. After putting the chalk away, he looked at Himeko indicating that he was ready to leave the place before walking away.

Himeko followed and briefly glanced at the reply left for the assassins.

_'Bring it on anytime, we will be waiting!'_

_"We?" _Himeko wondered whether that reply included her. Although Gon was unconscious, she knew that he would be going after these two assassins if he were awake in hopes to defeat them and go back to NGL. Now it was confirmed that Killua thought the same way, he didn't want to run away from the fight. However, Himeko still hadn't made up her mind yet. She had to think about everything realistically, and whether she'd actually be able to survive going back without Kite. The fact that he was there and created them an opportunity to flee was the sole reason all three of them got home safely.

They got to a nearby apartment so Gon can get proper rest, and while there Killua just sat beside Gon waiting for him wake up. Himeko made up her mind about the situation and started to rummage through her backpack she found at the NGL embassy without the person she had left the bag with. Both Toshiro and Natsume were no where to be found, and neither did they pick her up from the borders a while ago.

While looking through the bag, she found her earrings wrapped up in a piece of paper. She opened the sheet up and found that it was a note by the two.

_'Natsume and I have gone off to train after meeting Chairman Netero. Good luck, we will see you in a month.'_

'Good luck' it said. Himeko couldn't help but snicker after reading the note. It was as if her two teachers expected her to participate in this mess, and expected her to train by herself now that both of them have gone separate ways to train. She didn't waste much time to think and threw the note away before putting her earrings back on and taking out a fresh change of clothes out of her bag. She went to change her clothes in the bathroom and threw the dirty clothes she wore to NGL away. Once she was out, she picked up her bag and put it on.

Killua watched her restless behaviour and eventually began to understand what she thinking. "Are you leaving already?"

"I'm going back to Kioto," she informed him, "my involvement in this mission ends here. Good luck, tell Gon to be careful when he wakes up!"

"You are going to leave even after what the Chairman and those two men said to us? You heard them clearly didn't you, you know exactly what they said!"

"Yeah, so what? They called us lower than losers, but I've always been this way. So be it, I was born a loser, lived the life of one and will continue living as one, but I'd rather be a sane loser than a foolish hero!"

"Doesn't it bother you one bit?" He questioned. "You completely lost your cool back then, what happened to that side of you?"

"Not at all! I thought about it and the reason I became a Hunter wasn't to be praised by some big shots. I'm going back to the dojo, take on smaller jobs to save money and continue looking for my brother. Call me whatever you want, I don't really care, but there are certain things I want to do before I die. I don't want to imagine the possibility of me dying on this mission without accomplishing something big, but I guess it's not something the genius child of the Zoldycks would understand. After all, your parents probably raised you by praising you for everything you did." Killua was surprised at her sudden choice of words. Their conversation quickly escalated in her taking a jab at him, and she was obviously holding a grudge against him while she was doing so. "Wouldn't it be better for me to be gone anyway? You don't want me to come in your way, do you?"

Killua stayed quiet. He had to be the rational one here and drop the conversation completely before he made it worse. He took a moment to wonder why he decided to befriend these stubborn people, briefly looking at the reckless Gon lying on the bed fast asleep and then looking back at immature Himeko. "Then stay until Gon wakes up." He hoped that it would be enough for her to stay back because he knew the attachment and respect she had for Gon. He knew that she was closer to Gon than she was to him, so it might keep her back for a good few hours until he woke up. She looked over at Gon before sighing and putting her bag back on the floor in defeat. He had a point, if Gon were to wake up soon then he'd feel disappointed by the fact that she left without even saying a proper good-bye. "So, you are staying?"

"Until Gon wakes up," she reminded him before she headed out of the room. "I'm hungry, so I'll be making us all a good bye lunch. I'll be in the kitchen if you need me, but I highly doubt that."

Her sudden change in attitude just annoyed the hell out of him. He was no saint, so he did make mistakes as a human being but now that he had so much to worry about, having her take a dig at him every time they talked just added to his problems. Gon was still not awake at this point, and only god knew when he would wake up. Killua couldn't even remember how hard he smacked him before leaving the scene, but he knew that he didn't have time to control his strength. Maybe once he was up again Himeko would be acting a little more cooperative, but until then he had no idea on how to deal with her. He didn't even know whether he should try and talk it out. It could just be the fact that both of them were transmuters that made them fight a lot. After all, if opposites attracted then the likelihood of two similar people repelling would be high.

As he sat next to Gon's bed waiting for him to wake up, he started hearing rattling noises from the kitchen area. It stopped after a while, but then uneven chopping noises could be heard. He started to get irritated by the noises after a while and went to the kitchen to check up on her to see her trying to remove the skin from the chicken. He never exactly expected her to do a good job remembering how they all failed the second stage of the Hunter exam a year ago, but bad was an understatement. Rather than cooking, this girl was trying to take her anger out on the already dead chicken. She stopped what she was doing when she noticed him standing by the door.

Surprisingly, she greeted him with a wide smile. "Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't know Killua was standing there, please come in."

"What are you trying to do?"

"Oh, this?" She asked, holding up a piece of chicken breast and a knife up in her hands. "I'm just trying to take the skin off the chicken!"

Killua's eyes travelled from the garbage bin to the bowl containing the already cut pieces of meat. "Why is there more meat on the skin than on the actual meat?"

"I did try my best, but it's not like you'd ever be satisfied with anything I do," she shrugged, in a slightly sarcastic tone. She then calmly continued to cut the meat into chunks before placing them in the bowl.

Killua sighed before she walked over to the kitchen counter to help her out. "Pass me a knife, I'll help you." He was waiting for her to hand him a knife, but she just ignored him. After waiting for a moment, he figured out that she wasn't going to pass him a knife any time soon so he reached out for one himself.

"Stop!" Killua stopped immediately. "I don't need the help of someone who thinks of me as useless. If you want to cook, then go on. There are plenty of things in the fridge so make whatever you like. But I don't want your help."

"What's wrong with you?" Killua asked, now that he started to lose his patience. "Honestly, how old are you?"

"Me? You don't remember? Did you hit your head?" Himeko took a moment to think for a while before faking a gasp. "Oh no, don't tell me you hit your head! Killua has hit his head, what do we do now? We need to take you to the hospital and get you immediate attention, we can't have anything happen to Killua!"

"Whatever I did wrong, I'm sorry! Now get over it already, you're acting childish!"

"Then I'll just keep acting like a child!" She shrugged. "Why are you still here? You shouldn't waste your precious time with me, remember?"

Killua finally remember the very words he said on the way back. _'Just spend your energy paying attention to where you are going, I can't afford to waste my time looking around the place for you if you get lost. Don't get in my way!'_

_'Wouldn't it be better for me to be gone anyways? You wouldn't want me to get in your way, do you?', 'You shouldn't waste your precious time with me.'_ These were all words she used to remind him of what he had said to her. She looked fine in the morning, and it honestly didn't seem like it bothered her much but it clearly did. People tend to say that women tend to hold on to grudges longer than men, he finally understood what they meant by that. Others said that women are more forgiving than men, so hoping that statement held some truth to it, Killua left the kitchen and headed back to the where Gon was still resting.

It didn't take too long for Gon to wake up once Killua returned, which relieved him but also worried him at the same time. He didn't know how to break the bad news to Gon, so he remained silent waiting for Gon to ask him where Kite was instead. However, all Gon did was stare hard at him. "Thank you, Killua."

Hearing his, Killua was taken back a little. This was the last thing he expected to hear Gon say, which made him bite his own lips in frustration. In his opinion, there was nothing he did to deserve this thank you. Just like Morel said, he was disqualified for running away. He wasn't a loser, he was lower than one. "What did I do?"

"You were the one that stopped me before I could attack that ant." Gon explained. "I would have gotten in Kite's way if I did that. I could have ended up killing all four of us because of my recklessness."

"Kite," the mentioned of Kite's name just tensed Killua up again. He had to say it before Gon gets his hopes up high. "He is dead, Gon."

"Kite isn't dead!" Gon was brimming with confidence when he said that. "He is strong, he wouldn't have let _that thing_ beat him, he would have managed to escape somehow. He must still be in NGL waiting for us to come and save him. We have to become stronger to go and save him!"

Killua thought that Gon couldn't surprise him anymore after spending so much time with him, but he was wrong. Gon was positively sure that Kite was still out there somewhere, waiting for the three of them to return and get them out of that place. He was confident, a kind of confidence that Killua had never seen in anyone before. For half a day he just wanted to rip his hairs off his head, remembering the encounter with Neferpitou, remembering the rash decision he took to leave Kite behind and remembering Morel's, Knov's and Netero's harsh words. Although it was now midday, he felt as if time had stopped for him and he was stuck in an eternal night. All Gon did was smile and even if it was just for a second, Killua managed to forget about all his worries. Whether Kite was still alive, he still doubted. But thanks to Gon, he wanted to try again and go back to NGL just to confirm the possibility of Kite still being alive.

Although Gon thanked Killua, Killua thought that he should be the one being grateful. Gon always manages to light up his eternal night. After a whole day of grieving, Killua was finally able to smile again.

The boys' attention turned to the door when they heard the doorknob turn. A miserable looking Himeko entered the scene whom Gon greeted in his usual cheerful tone. "Kou! I was just about to ask Killua where you were."

His voice surprised her, and she looked up to see him awake and well. She couldn't help but sigh in relief now that he was finally up and seemed unharmed, but the fact that he was so energetic stunned her. Kite was gone, and she couldn't imagine him being this happy after hearing the news. At first she wondered whether he had a concussion from Killua's blow, but she knew it would take a lot more than just that to cause Gon serious damage. Did Killua lie to him about something so important? She asked herself whether he would even lie to him about Kite's death. Or maybe Killua just hadn't had an opportunity to break the bad news to him.

The feeling of your hopes being brought up high, only to be crushed back down was awful and she knew how it felt like. She didn't want Gon to go through the same thing.

"Gon, Kite is-"

"He is still in NGL!" Gon cut her off, just how he did with Killua. "I was just telling Killua about how we all should become stronger and go to save Kite. It might take a while, but I know that if all three work together, we can do it!"

Killua sat there anticipating her response. He knew that she was scared and that she didn't want to go back at any cost. She even wanted to leave back to the dojo and not have anything else to do with the mission. But Gon had already included her in his little plan without her permission, so what was she possibly going to do about that?

She stood in daze, not knowing how to reply. This was Gon she was talking to, she couldn't possibly tell him that the probability of Kite still being alive was very slim. Even if she did, knowing Gon he would somehow use an illogical counter argument against her, telling her that Kite was still alive. Neither did she have enough courage to tell him that she was about run away from this all and cut off ties with this mission. Gon trusted her as much as he trusted himself- no, Gon was the type to trust his friends more than he trusted himself. Her chest started to feel heavy once she finally realised how selfish she truly was.

"Ah, Kou!" Both the boys were startled to her trembling, trying her best to hold back her tears in front of them. Gon immediately rushed out of his bed to her side and tried to calm her down somehow. "Don't cry Kou, I didn't say anything wrong did I?"

She frantically shook her head in response, hoping Gon would stop asking her whether she was okay because that would just make her cry even more. It made her feel even more guilty to see him so worried about her. "Sorry, Gon."

"Huh, what's wrong? Did something happen?" Gon was trying to get to the bottom of this, and when she couldn't hold her tears back anymore he looked back at Killua wondering whether he knew anything about this. But knowing that her guilty conscience got the better of her, Killua just smiled as everything was going to be normal again.

_"It's about time she came to grips with herself."_

Her emotional breakdown ended in less than five minutes, with Gon trying really hard to calm her down. Because of this, all she did was cry even harder. Now she was staring at the two boys in utter embarrassment mentally face palming at herself. _"Damn, that was embarrassing!" _

Luckily for her, Gon was able to change the topic thanks to his nose. "I smell food."

That was when she remembered. "Oh yeah, I made us all lunch!" She went back to the kitchen and brought back two plates of Omurice; something she had never made before so it turned out a little strange. But that didn't matter to her, she thought that she did a good job in drawing pictures using ketchup on the omelette to try and cover up her mistakes. Although she was proud of her little drawings, Gon and Killua had no idea what in the world they were.

"I hope you don't mind me asking, but what is this?" Gon asked, slightly confused by the what she drew.

She smiled proudly, "It's a bunny with a nurse hat!"

"Is that why it says 'Get well soon'?" Although her drawing was impossible to identify, her handwriting was the sheer contrast to her artistic skills. You could say that her hand writing was actually very pretty and mature.

"That's right!" She nodded. Killua on the other hand was still confused and turned his plate to try and look at the picture on his omelette from different angles.

"Why does my bunny look like an angry dog?" Killua questioned.

"You are really observant, it looks like an angry dog because it is one!" Himeko explained. Killua then looked down at 'HATE' written neatly with ketchup, in contrast to the message she was trying to get across to him.

"Where is your plate, Kou?" Gon asked, realising she had only brought back two plates. "Aren't you hungry?"

"I kinda lost my appetite while I was cooking," she chuckled nervously.

"Don't bother Gon!" Killua interrupted. "Girls her age go through a phase where they solely focus on their looks. She is probably dieting or something. If she's successful, then maybe she'll be able to make someone fall for her, although I highly doubt that. If that does happens, I pity whoever that will be though!" Himeko's eyes twitched in annoyance.

Gon took a brief moment to look at Himeko. "I don't get it, why would she have to stop eating to look pretty? What's so bad about the way she looks right now, she is really pretty."

"You have to be more selective with women, some might look innocent but they'll be nothing like their outer appearance."

"And that's why Gon will get all the chicks and you'll be forever alone!" Himeko commented in annoyance. "Besides, I'm not dieting. Something or someone just ruined my mood while I was cooking."

"Never mind you two, let's just eat." Gon cut in before they could start arguing. He looked at the food in front of him and although it didn't look that good, he thought he'd give it a try. Looks can be deceiving. Himeko and Killua watched closely as he put a spoonful of food into his mouth before he started to chew. They waited for him to swallow and give them his commentary. "It's actually not bad but it is a bit crunchy."

Killua hesitantly followed Gon's example and put a spoonful of the food in his mouth, hoping Gon wasn't being too nice about her food. As he started to chew, he noticed that the rice was undercooked, while the chicken in the rice was overcooked. The omelette wasn't too bad, but it did lack seasoning. Not only that, there were pieces of eggshells in the omelette which she forgot to take out. That must be what Gon meant by it being crunchy. Himeko and Gon anticipated his comment.

"I'll give it a nine," he said, surprising both by the high score he gave her cooking.

"Out of ten?" Gon asked curiously.

"No, out of a hundred."

Himeko started sulking. "Is my cooking really that bad?"

"It's not _that_ bad Kou, cheer up!" Gon said, before he got another spoonful of food and offered it to her. "Here, try it."

She didn't know what to expect since she forgot to taste the chicken rice before wrapping it in the omelette, but nonetheless she opened her mouth and tried a mouthful of the food she made. She slowly chewed through the food and ended up making a bitter face.

"Is it bad?" Gon asked, noticing her expression darken.

She nodded, "very bad!" She continued to chew until she somehow forced her own cooking down. "What do we do now?" Gon and Killua looked at each other before shrugging. They just continued to eat with no further complaints, leaving Himeko tilting her head in confusion. Gon wasn't so surprising, but Killua was. "You don't have to force it down if you don't want to. I don't want you two blaming me if you end up with food poisoning."

"Aunt Mito always told me to never waste food," Gon explained before taking another spoonful of rice into his mouth.

"I'm immune to poison anyway, so meh!" Killua shrugged again before he continued to eat.

Whether they were both indirectly insulting her or not still baffled her, but in the end they finished eating and got dressed to go out while she went to wash their dishes. While Gon was busy changing in the bathroom, Killua joined Himeko in the kitchen hoping she had finally forgotten their so called argument from earlier.

"Need help?" He asked. She turned around to see him by the door. "Oh wait, you don't accept help from me."

"I said I don't accept help from people who look down on me," she corrected his statement before closing the tap. "Wash the dishes, I'll dry them!" Killua walked over to the sink and turned the tap back on before he continued where Himeko left off. Himeko got a dry cloth and started to dry the pots she had already washed before Killua entered the room.

"You still haven't gone home," he pointed out, before passing her a freshly washed dish. "Is the flight tonight?"

"Is there really a point in asking a question when you know the answer?" She asked him in irritation. She knew that he had figured everything out long ago, so it felt like he was mocking her. "I'm staying to fight!"

"Hm, is that so?" He asked. "What changed your mind all of the sudden?" Himeko narrowed her eyes at him. He obviously knew the answers to the questions he was asking her, yet he still asked.

"There was a reason why I wanted to leave before Gon woke up," she explained. "I knew Gon was going to make me stay back somehow, so I wanted to be in Kioto by the time he woke up. But when Gon told me that Kite was still alive, and that he wanted us all to go back to save him I honestly felt so guilty. I probably never felt so guilty before in my life..."

"And you aren't scared anymore?"

"I'm hella scared!" She answered almost immediately. "But now that I think about it, I'm scared of a lot of things. I'm scared of bugs, but I still came to NGL knowing I'd be up against giant mutated ants. I'll just have to learn to suck it up." She placed the dried plate in a pile before she continued. "Kite isn't confirmed dead yet, even if the chance of him being alive is low I want to look for him just in case. I don't have much hope, but aren't Gon's instincts usually correct when it comes to these things?"

Killua nodded his head, "they usually are. Let's hope he is right this time too."

"Yeah."

"What are you two slow pokes doing?" Gon asked impatiently once he was finally done changing. "Weren't we supposed to go out into town?"

"Perfect timing, Gon!" Himeko exclaimed before pointing at all the dried dishes, pots, pans and cutlery. "Since you clearly have nothing better to do, you can put these all back where they belong!"

"Aww, why do I have to do that?"

"Because I have to go to the toilet, so you might as well finish everything before I'm done since you are so eager to go!"

Gon pouted before he looked at the pile of things he had to clear away. While they were finishing, Himeko took a quick toilet break before she remembered something. The note that was in her bag along with her earrings. She threw it away in anger, but she wondered whether she had missed something that was on the note. She had a feeling that there must have been something more on it. After giving it some thought, she wanted to confirm her suspicion and got the note out from the bin and unfolded it.

_'Natsume and I have gone off to train after meeting Chairman Netero. Good luck, we will see you in a month.'_

She read the same message she had read earlier. _"Hold on a second, this feels a bit like Natsu's Nen. But wasn't the note written by Toshi?" _She tried using _Gyo_ to find any possible leads and bingo, there it was.

_'If you are reading this then congratulations, we are assuming you didn't throw a hissy fit and run back to Kioto. You might be scared now, but you WILL get stronger. We made arrangements for you to do so before leaving to train ourselves. Work hard and we'll meet again in a month!'_

_"Those assholes could have just written it normally instead of dramatising everything..."_ She smiled to herself before neatly folding the piece of paper up and putting it away safely in her bag._ "Arrangements they say... It can't be Haru since he's gone to Yorkshin for a couple of months. Natsu did say he had a lot of friends who are Hunters so maybe one of them. In that case, let's just hope he is hot!"_

Gon's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. "Kou, we are leaving!"

"Okay, I'll be there."

Killua suggested that they should go back to the town hall and check whether there was another note left for them. On the way there, he explained Netero's conditions to Gon who was unconscious during that time. Netero had given them two tokens, and there were two more in the possession of the two assassins who were staying in the same town as them. In order for them to be able to enter NGL, they had to be in the possession of two matching tokens. But that raised another question.

"But there are three of us!" Gon pointed out.

"Yeah, I was thinking about that too." Killua admitted. "At this rate, only two of us will be able to go back to NGL."

"Can't all three of us go?" Gon asked.

"How are you going to do that?"

"I don't now, we could try and cut one of the tokens in half so all three of us have one," Gon suggested.

But Himeko quickly rejected that idea. "Even if we did that, only two of us would still be able to pass."

"This is harder than I thought!" Gon scratched his head in frustration. "What if we try smuggling Kou over with us. She is the smallest out of us so we can try and fit her in a bag."

"That won't work Gon, I'm only a couple of inches shorter than you two."

"Let's not worry to much about it now. We'll figure out a way to deal with it later." Killua told them calmly. "Let's just focus on taking the two assassins out."

The weather was quite nice, and there were no clouds up in the sky just like any other summer's day. Compared to when Killua and Himeko were taking Gon to the apartment in the morning, the streets were definitely a lot louder now during midday. As planned, the trio made their way towards the town hall and were just about to enter the building when Himeko stopped walking all of the sudden, making the door slam on her face. Gon was the first one to look back to realise that she was holding her nose wincing in pain.

He opened the door again and checked whether she was fine. "Are you okay, Kou?"

"I think I broke my nose!" She whined.

"For crying out loud, what happened now?" Killua groaned in annoyance. "That's what happens when you don't pay attention to where you are going. Why did you stop walking?"

"Does no one care about my precious nose?"

"Fine, remove your hands so Gon and I can have a look!"

She hesitantly took her hands away from her nose and watched them stare hard. "So? Don't tell me it's broken! What am I supposed to do with a broken nose?"

"It looks fine!" Killua confirmed. "Let's go!"

"Come on Kou," Gon held the door open for her this time. "Why did you stop walking all of the sudden anyway, did something happen?"

"Yeah, I felt really cold all of the sudden. It's been so long since I've felt this way," she explained.

"Why, is it some medical condition or something?" Killua asked, eavesdropping into the conversation.

Himeko shook her head, "No, you guys don't know this but I think I have a sixth sense. Something was watching us."

"Don't tell me it's an ant!"

"No, it must have been a ghost!" Himeko concluded confidently, only to throw the two boys off guard by her random answer. The fact that they didn't look like they believed her offended her slightly, but she explained further. "You see, my mother would always tell me how my ancestors are watching over us when I was still living in the mansion. So sometimes when I walked down the corridors alone I could hear footsteps following me but there was nothing behind me. What made it worse, there was no one in that part of the mansion to begin with. Only one sixth of our mansion was actually occupied because not many remained in the main clan so most of the place was abandoned. Also, when I was three, apparently I was about to fall into our pond because I saw a boy calling me to play with him." Her story became more and more unbelievable by the minute which made the boys raise a brow in disbelief. "They do exist, don't look at me like that!"

"I actually thought this was something important, but I guess it's not." Killua shrugged before he walked off ahead. Gon just smiled at her and followed Killua's lead after telling her not to think too much about it.

_"Something smells fishy,"_ Himeko thought, cautiously looking around the area. _"And it's definitely not the fish market downstairs!"_

She shrugged the feeling off before sticking close to the two boys who were walking in front of her. Eventually, she was able to completely forget about the cold feeling she got. But suddenly, she felt a cold hand touch her left shoulder.

"Excuse me?" Hearing a slightly low pitched woman's voice, Himeko slowly turned her head around to see who this hand belonged to. Behind her was a very tall and pale woman, with unruly black hair that reached past her skin and large eyes. She was wearing a sleeveless purple dress that was midi length and was surrounded by a dark, eery aura that caught everyone's attention. Her purple lips curved upwards when she saw Himeko's nervous chuckles.

_"Himeko Inoue K.O," _she thought before she fell unconscious to the ground. Hearing a loud thud, Gon and Killua finally looked back to see their friend who had fainted and is now lying on the floor with an unfamiliar and suspicious woman checking up on her. They spent some time looking at the stranger until she finally noticed two pairs of eyes staring at her and looked up at them.

"You two must be Gon and Killua. Your friend on the floor is Himeko I'm assuming," the fact that she looked the way she did already gave them the creeps, but the fact that she knew their names was even creepier. Seeing them so agitated made the woman giggle, "No need to give me those looks, I assume the Chairman hasn't filled you in on certain things. Why don't we go and talk over a cup of tea, of course after your friend wakes up."

Gon and Killua slowly made their way over to Himeko to try and wake her up, trying to maintain as much distance between themselves and the strange woman. Gon lightly shook her by the shoulders, hoping she'd wake up. "Kou wake up!"

Himeko slowly opened her eyes and looked around before jumping back up on her feet, looking at Gon and Killua in relief. "Oh my god, I thought I saw Sadako from The Ring and fainted. I need to stop imagining these things!" Killua pointed at the woman standing behind her. She turned around to see the same woman from earlier standing there with the same, eery smile. "I think I need to faint again!"

Killua snapped at her, "there is no time for that!"

"The Chairman sent her over," Gon informed her. "She suggested that we should go and talk at the nearby cafe."

"Did you check the notice board first?" She asked.

"Yeah," Killua answered. "The message has been rubbed off so I'm assuming they've seen it."

"So what do we do now?"

"Go to the cafe with her," Gon said, pointing at the woman.

"Why?!" She asked before lowering her tone so Palm couldn't hear her. "She looks like the type that carries a large butcher knife around."

"What's so scary about a woman carrying a knife around?" Killua asked.

"Let me tell you something Killua. A woman without a knife can be scary enough, a woman with a knife would be batshit crazy!"

"Excuse me." The woman's voice startled them as she tried to get their attention. "Please, follow me."

Three children following one very weird woman, that got quite a lot of attention from everyone around them. Luckily for them, she did end up taking them to the nearest cafe instead of some abandoned alley. The trio sat opposite her as she ordered her coffee and they were fine with a glass of juice. A brief silence surrounded the table before the woman started talking.

"My name is Palm, I am a student of Knov-sensei," she introduced herself.

"Knov-sensei?" Gon asked, looking at both Killua and Himeko who were on either side of him, hoping they would know who it is.

"It could be one of the men that was with Chairman Netero," Killua suggested.

_"Oh, so it's one of the mofos from back then!"_

"Yes, it's the one in the black suit," Palm added.

_"Okay, so mofo number two. The big guy is mofo number one."_

Palm then continued where she left off, "Knov-sensei wouldn't let me accompany him because I'll be in his way, but I insisted. My Sensei is an amazing person, he is cool, intelligent, composed. Oh wait, cool and composed mean the same thing." Without her noticing, she added spoonful after spoonful of sugar into her cup while praising her teacher. "Oh, please don't get me wrong. I don't like him romantically or anything, I just respect him. But then again, respect is a major factor when falling in love."

Rather than paying attention to her unrequited love story, the trio just watched her put more and more sugar into the cup up to the point where it could be overflowing. Himeko even started counting the number of spoons she was putting in but gave up once she reached twenty, concluding that the end result would just be diabetes. But thinking about it again, the amount of sugar she consumes in a day could be the reason why Palm was the way she was. Eventually the pile of sugar became visible, and the trio started to shudder at the sight of it. Even Killua who spends millions of Jenny on chocolate was slightly disturbed by it all.

Once she finally realised the fact that she was praising her teacher a lot, she started blushing. "Of course he doesn't know anything about all this," she began to stir her cup of sugar and began drinking it making them all shudder once more.

Himeko interrupted her, "Umm, excuse me. Would you like me to order you some coffee to go with that sugar?"

By the time she was done asking though, Palm was already done drinking and continued talking about her one sided. "But you never know, love is a spontaneous thing, don't you agree?" She spent a brief moment to look at the three children sitting in front of her and got embarrassed once again.

"I guess I could agree with that..." Himeko mumbled to herself, thinking about her own, lonely, unrequited love. "We both have the _Senpai notice me syndrome_."

"I don't mean to interrupt," Killua said, but interrupted her anyways, "but aren't you supposed to fight us?"

"Oh yes, I completely forgot about it all. I felt like I spent an eternity trying to convince Sensei and the Chairman, but neither of them would let me go along with them. My Sensei might seem like a cold person, but he is actually gentle on the inside."

_"Gentle?"_ Himeko raised a brow. _"He's a fucking asshole, and part of the mofo duo."_

"Of course you have to spend some time with him to notice, not that I spend time with him as lovers or anything."

Killua slammed the table after he finally he couldn't be any more patient with her side tracking, "So what is the plan?!"

"Defeat Knuckle and Shoot!" She answered, changing her fangirling tone into a more serious one. "To think those vulgar creatures could set foot into NGL before me angers me." They didn't know what relationship she had with Knuckle and Shoot, but she sure did seem pissed at the mention of them. She accidentally used _Nen_ as well which caused her coffee to over pour which Gon kindly cleaned up in the end, although he wasn't happy with the fact that she was an Enhancer like him.

Palm continued to fully explain the conditions. Knuckle and Shoot received conditions from the Chairman too, but Palm wasn't on their side. They were two of Morel's students and their defeat would result in Palm being allowed to enter NGL to help her dear Sensei out. Netero rushed the explanation, so when Palm explained it fully it made more sense to them.

"So even if two of us beat Knuckle and Shoot, all four of us can go?" Gon asked.

"Yes, that's right."

Gon looked at Killua and Himeko and smiled, "That's great, we can all go in that case! We don't have to try and smuggle Kou into NGL."

_"Even if you tried, it wouldn't happen Gon..."_

But at least they had one worry out of their minds, all they had to do was get the tokens from Knuckle and Shoot. Palm seemed to know quite a bit about them, so having her by their side was surprisingly useful for them. On the contrary, Knuckle and Shoot didn't know anything about Killua, Gon or Himeko, so in one way or another they were safe for now.

After the short introduction and long rambling about her beloved Sensei, Palm left the cafe saying they'll meet again at some point. Himeko who had set her eyes on an ice cream store on the way to the cafe left the two boys alone to explore the town. Once at the ice cream store, she picked four out of the infinite number of choices, paid and made her way out slowly walking back to their meeting place with the ice cream cup. It was nice to take some things off her mind by doing some quick window shopping while enjoying her four scoops of ice cream. However, peace didn't remain for too long as someone decided to cause some ruckus out on the streets. She got closer to check who it was.

A well built man with a pompadour hairstyle in white marched through the streets screaming his head of. He was carrying a flag with 'BRING IT ON' written in big, bold letters.

"Come out you three cowards, I challenge you all to a battle tonight at midnight." He announced on the streets. "If you are all real men then come out and fight me."

Himeko stood on the sidelines, staring at him while eating her ice cream although everyone else was trying to avoid eye contact with this crazy man. _"I'm a woman, so no, I won't come and fight you."_

"I will be there and waiting for you to come and fight me fair and square. If you are so tough, then come and fight me!"

_"Don't let him bother you Himeko, throwing your ice cream at him would just be a waste of food. Just ignore the mad man and move along, enough window shopping for the day!"_

Once she reached the restaurant where they were supposed to meet though, Gon and Killua had already started eating and discussing plans to train. She quickly joined them, wanting to tell them about her encounter with the mad man, but apparently he walked past Killua as well. He seemed like a well trained individual, and they couldn't underestimate him. Especially not because Netero had put faith in these two, so they would obviously be good. However when discussing how to fight these two, Gon and Killua seemed to have a difference in opinion.

Killua was stuck on trying to learn their abilities and working out a way to fight them and win in order to pass Netero's challenge, but Gon thought otherwise. Gon wasn't particularly interested in beating Morel's students, he wanted to save Kite. He looked at the bigger picture in the whole situation which was surprising, Killua was usually the one to do so. They can't go back to NGL predicting every ants ability, so would knowing Knuckle's and Shoot's abilities before fighting them really be considered training. Himeko found herself surprised at Gon. The plan did sound like him, wanting to head straight into battle without a plan. But he had actually thought things through this time around. The fact that she ended up agreeing with Gon, rather than the much saner Killua really astonished her.

But her heart couldn't help but drop everything Gon spoke about saving Kite with such determination. In this situation, Killua and her were somehow prepared to see both sides of the coin. It wouldn't even be a fifty fifty chance, the chance of Kite still being alive was less than fifty in her opinion. What if Kite really ended up dead, how would Gon react in such a situation? Gon wanted to be prepared for anything, but she doubted that he'd be prepared for the worse case scenario.

In the end, they went back to the apartment in the hopes of finally beginning to train. Gon was eager to beat Morel's students as soon as possible, not in a month but a week, wanting to go back to NGL at the end of the week.

"I don't need a month, I will do it in a week." He told them confidently as they walked down the hallway towards their door. "Then at the end of the week, we can go and save Kite!"

But when his hand reached the doorknob to open the front door to the apartment, the door flung open and Gon flew back, hitting the wall. "You idiot!" The loud voice surprised the other two who watched Gon being punched in the face. They turned to see who the culprit was, but only two could identify her.

"Bisky?!"

_"Who now?"_

"What are you doing here?" Gon asked her.

"I called her here!" Palm answered, appearing out of no where. How they got the keys to the apartment wasn't exactly the question being asked by anyone except Himeko. Gon and Killua were interested in something else.

"Do you two know each other?"

"No, but I looked into you all." Palm answered, before giving them a sinister laugh. "There is nothing you three can hide from me."

Himeko looked at the twelve year looking girl, in a frilly pink dress and wearing her blonde hair in a pony tail. _"Bisky, isn't that their trainer from Greed Island?" _A trainer that could put both the boys through hell, she looked a lot different from what the pair described her; surprisingly cute that is. The thought of the boys getting beat up by someone who was even a couple of inches shorter than her made her giggle.

"Don't laugh at other's misfortune, child!" They all proceeded to peak inside the apartment after hearing a very stern voice of an old man. The voice wasn't familiar to anyone, apart from one that is. Himeko's body tensed up before she slowly peaked inside. Sensei was walking towards her at high speed and gave her his signature flick on the forehead, making her crouch down on the floor and groan in pain holding her forehead.

"What was that for?!" She asked the elder man.

"Don't shout at your elders!" He shouted back at her which ended up shutting her up, surprising both the boys who were watching. They couldn't recall anyone who actually made her listen to them; she even started being her loud self around Kite once she got used to his cold and intimidating exterior.

Himeko looked at Palm, "Was this your doing too?"

Palm however shook her head, "He came by himself before I could even contact him."

Himeko started to think a little and thought of the sanest possibility. "Natsu called you, didn't he?"

"They asked me to take over and train you from where they left off while they are away, but I don't see where I'm supposed to take over." He said. "Your training with them was useless, I need to start again it seems. If you learnt anything from them, then you wouldn't have wanted to run away from your problems today, you would have wanted to stay and try again."

She was awfully surprised to hear those words from Sensei, especially since no one else apart from Killua knew about her wanting to go back to the dojo. She didn't even tell Gon about it because of that guilty feeling that returned whenever she thought about it. It must have been the so called 'information gather' that told him all about it. She looked over at Palm to confirm her suspicion and it looked as if though she was right.

Gon looked slightly thrown off guard hearing about all this and all Himeko could do is lower her head in shame, "I'm sorry, Gon." She then looked at Sensei who seemed overly disappointed in her, "Sorry, Sensei."

"An apology isn't going to be enough to get stronger!" He yelled at her, before he dragged her inside by her t-shirt collar. "We will start your training right now!" Himeko remained quiet as she was dragged inside while the others just watched the scene in awe.

"It would be better for you if you remained behind and trained like a good girl," Palm warned her before pulling out a large kitchen knife out of no where. "If you did run away, I would have had to chase you down." Himeko's eyes widened, before she jumped into and upright position and ran into an empty space to start her training. Now that she was dealt with, Bisky looked at her two students.

"What are you two looking at, step inside so we can start!"

Gon and Killua stepped inside and found an empty spot for themselves while Bisky rummaged through her bag to find something that may or may not assist them with their training. Palm on the other hand just let out an excited cackle. "Finally, my plan to slaughter Knuckle and Shoot can finally be put into action."

She continued her maniacal laugh while Gon, Killua and Himeko just shook their heads in response. _"Someone please take that knife away from her."_

* * *

**A/n -** I might update more regularly until September. My new school is two hours away from home so if I do get into that school, then I may or may not get the time to update regularly. I noticed the previous two chapters covered like ten episodes, but this covered like half an episode. (but they were short because I didn't write about Pokkle and Ponzu, and didn't switch from Gon and co's POV to the Ants' POV because all they talked about was eating humans).

I just realised how immaturely I portray Himeko as, I kinda feel sorry for her love interests now...

**Review Corner - **

**SilverLove** (whose name was unfortunately already taken so she decided on **SilverDewDrop**) - Jet lag sucks, but I hope you had fun on your trip :) And don't worry about the double review, all computers/ laptops act crappy once in a while. My macbook blacked out once and it wouldn't turn on, so I asked my bro to fix it and all he did was hold the on button for like 10 seconds and it started working again. And there I was trying to press the button gazillion of times and it still wouldn't work. Technology really hates me -_-

**Queechi -** The irony of them visiting a nature loving country and finding out that it's dodgier than any normal non nature loving country.

**Kri - **'You won't die, you're the protagonist' Lol XD And yay, she isn't leaving.

**Lucas Nee-chan** (who wasn't actually known as Yuki nee-chan but Yoko nee-chan. My bad!) - Thank you for your review once again, and you're welcome for the update!

**Melissa - **Himeko shall answer your review again!

_Himeko : Well, tough luck for them. A tampon is practically like a plaster that stops you from bleeding from any other parts of the body, so why can't I say it in front of them? Also, you got good tastes in OCs! *thumbs up*_

**Abi -** Bitch, where are my cookies? I'm still waiting for my Marylands!

**Jikola -** Thank you for reviewing! I was hoping to make Himeko's character a relatable although her past certainly wouldn't completely be. Well, some elements of her past are such as being compared to your smarter siblings all the time (I'm sure a lot of us go through that including me). Let's just hope she gets stronger now that she is in the hands of her teachers' teacher xD

**Guest -** Thanks for the review, and here is the update. Wasn't too much hassle for me to write, so don't worry. I hope my corny jokes made your day once again, although there weren't many in this chapter ^^ (unless I unintentionally included them)

**TangoUnicornA -** Yeah, she pretty much doesn't know what to do in a fight apart from giving lame speeches. She did blow one of the ants up after getting her arm stuck in his mouth because she couldn't think of a less messy way to do so. In the end she got her clothes dirty OTL. When she was up against the ant in the forest she just wanted to show off her technique because Gon and Killua already did when fighting Rammot and she reacted too late. She just cut them up and told Gon to go up next because she just wanted to show them that she is strong. She gets competitive if you haven't realised yet XD

And apparently no one ships her with Kurapika, so don't worry you are not the only one. I might want to include Gonx'someone' in the sequel and it's a character I've already introduced but I won't reveal who. I just feel like their personalities click thinking about it, but it won't last throughout the whole series so I might do like a spin off or something.

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Well, that's all from me. Now I need to run downstairs and get backup because there is this huge spider in my room. It's been there for fifteen minutes and I had to try and make sure it didn't come close to me while typing TT_TT


	46. Patience is a Virtue

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 46**

_Patience is a Virtue _

_..._

Bisky got herself a magazine and sat down comfortably on a sofa after giving Gon a lecture. Gon claimed he could become strong enough to go back in a week, and he received a good beating from Bisky for saying so. When Netero gives you one month to do something, it's usually something that can only be done in a years time. He was notorious for being one man with a nasty sense of humour. It reminded them of when he challenged the trio to a little game during the Hunter exam because he was bored apparently and wanted something to pass time.

Nonetheless, she told them to release their _Ren_ and hold the position for three hours while she started to look through the magazine full of buff guys. Seeing them start their training, Himeko looked at Sensei. "So, when are we starting?"

Sensei sat down and motioned for her to do the same. Apparently he wanted to have a little chat with her before even starting training to set a couple things straight. "You wanted to run back to the dojo I heard."

"Why do you have to bring that up again?" She questioned him. "I decided to stay in the end, isn't that what counts?"

"It's not wrong to be scared Himeko, but it's wrong to give up so early on." He told her. "Do you think I would have let you back into my dojo after you've left your friends behind to fight? My dojo is no place for cowards."

She raised a brow at his response. "What's the point you are trying to make, Sensei?"

Looking at her serious expression, he laughed whole heartedly. "No need to make such a scary face, I will come to my point. Your _Hatsu_ is based on your personality, do you remember what Toshi always taught you?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I?" She asked. "He repeats that sentence every lesson, he might as well just write it on his forehead and walk around like that."

He flicked her forehead once again. "Your attitude gets portrayed in your _Hatsu_ as well. If you are someone who runs away from problems, then your _Hatsu_ will be weak. To protect yourself, your defence would become greater than your offence. What's the point of being a fighter in that case, you might as well just be a brick wall protecting the fighters in battle."

"So, you are telling me to fix my attitude."

"Martial arts isn't just about strength Himeko," he continued to explain, "discipline is just as important for a martial arts fighter as their speed and strength. I'm not telling you to become a completely different person, I'm telling you embrace your good traits and keep your temper under control. A fighter needs patience, your opponent shouldn't be able to throw you off in a fight." Sensei then gestured over at Gon and Killua who had already began their training. "Why do you think your two friends are that strong? They might be born with abilities that only few possess, but without proper training that would be useless. Their determination keeps the pair going, if you put your mind to it you can become just as strong as them."

"As strong as them?"

"That's right, maybe even stronger."

Himeko took a while to look at Gon and Killua training before nodding to herself, "okay, got it!" She was about to stand back up so she could start training just like the two of them, but Sensei stopped her once again.

"I have one more condition," he informed her. "When fighting, you rely too much on the newly found powers given to you by that drug. Would you have been able to become a Hunter without it?"

She sat back down properly, crossing her legs and started to think about it deeply. "No, I wouldn't have even gotten to the exam site if I didn't have the ability. I would have only been able to pass the exam once I learnt _Nen _but without the effects of the drug it would have taken me longer to become this good."

It was the sad truth. In reality, she wouldn't have passed the Hunter exam if it wasn't for Gon either even with those abilities. The sole reason why they eventually got the the site was thanks to his good instincts. The sole reason why she was able to pass the first stage was because Gon came and saved them from Hisoka. She passed the second stage again thanks to Gon who told them all when it was the correct time to jump and collect the eggs. The third stage she would have been able to complete on her own, but thanks to Gon once again, all of them got to pass; even Tonpa. During the fourth stage of the exam on Zevil Island, her target was already dead so her work was already done for her and she wouldn't have been able to get back to the meet up spot if it wasn't for Killua. The last stage, she won by default and in the end she was given the license thanks to pure, dumb luck.

If it wasn't for Kurapika who had encouraged her to go and speak to the side clan, she would have never gone to Kioto and met Natsume, Toshiro, Haruko or Sensei, so she would have never known about _Nen_ either. Thinking about it all made her question one thing; did her Hunter license really belong to her or did it belong to Gon who practically carried her on his back all the way through? Was the fact that she passed Sensei's test by staying in the Forest of Shadows really the reason she was able to begin training at the dojo, or was it thanks to Kurapika who gave her the courage to go to Kioto in the first place?

One thing was for sure, sulking over it wasn't going to help her at all. Sure, Gon and the others might have played a big role in her being able to obtain her license and being the person she had become over the past year but in order to make it all count she had to become stronger. She had to become strong enough so she could pass the Hunter exam once again without her so called newly found superpowers, or her _Nen_ abilities.

"Which is exactly why I want you to stop relying on it so much." He stated. "Use it to enhance your abilities, but don't misuse them. Until you enter NGL, you aren't allowed to use the effects of the drug. If you break this condition of mine, I won't allow you to stay here any longer and I will take you back to the Kioto."

Although she knew that without the power of the drug she would only be a little stronger than the average thirteen year old girl, but to prove herself worthy to continue fighting with Gon and Killua this was the only way. She wanted to go back home earlier on during the day, but now she wanted to stay and fight. But before she could do so, there was a big question on her mind.

"Not using it for a month is fine and all, but I don't see a switch off button for it..." she pointed out. "The drug was injected into my body over a couple of dosages so I don't really get how I'm supposed to not use it. It has already become part of me!"

"Then you just have to learn to control it!" He told her sternly before he started to warn her. "The feeling of being stronger than you actually are is great of course, but you have to keep in mind that it's not originally yours. It might come with a heavy price if you overuse it. I always warn the other three, but that moron Natsume never listens to me. Don't go and do something you might regret in the end."

Hearing his words of warning, she gulped imagining 'the worst'. He obviously used Natsume as an example because he was indeed a moron, and he would probably be the only one who wouldn't take Sensei's words seriously. It reminded her of the reason why Natsume wasn't allowed past the NGL borders; his injury. He managed to shatter his bones because of him being an irrational idiot which in the end was only because he was being reckless. At least he survived with just a minor injury, Sensei's 'heavy price' meant death.

"What do I do?"

"That is up to you to figure out, I do not know anything about your abilities neither am I familiar with them."

"But what am I supposed to do then?" She questioned "I don't know how to stop using it and neither can I use it even if by accident."

"Don't ask me, that all depends on your ability to learn." He repeated his words again before standing up. He walked up to a nearby bookshelf and got out the biggest book. It was what looked like an Atlas from afar. He brought the book over and Himeko stood up. "Here, we will begin your training with this."

"A book?" She asked tilting her head in confusion. "Am I supposed to read it to become stronger or..."

"Place it on your head and learn to balance it!" He instructed her.

"Balancing a book on my head?" She asked again. "That's it?"

"Why? Are you that confident in your abilities?"

Himeko answered his question with a confident smile. "I had to do a lot of things as a child to get a good posture. Balancing a book on my head is nothing!" She then demonstrated just that by placing the book on her head and walking around the area with ease before returning to her original position. "See?"

"Well done!" He praised her in a sarcastic tone. "Let's start today's training then. Kneel down on the floor and place this on your head to begin." She didn't see how much difference that would make to her, she just proved to him that she could prevent the book from falling even while she was walking around. Nonetheless, she followed his instructions and knelt down on the floor before getting into an upright position and placing the book on her head. "Now, let's begin."

Sensei lightly touched the blue Atlas and all of the sudden, it became a lot heavier than it originally was. She didn't know what he had done, but whatever it was she didn't like it at all. She felt an immense pressure pushing her down, and she tried her best to remain in her upright position and oppose the pressure. The pressure was way too much to handle for her at once, she couldn't even ask her Sensei what was going on. She felt as if her body could be crushed the very moment she even opened her mouth to talk, let alone move a muscle.

Sensei made his way to the corner and sat down.

"Doesn't that pressure remind you of something?" He asked, although he wasn't expecting a response from her at this point. "The pressure you are feeling is very similar to _Ren. _I heard that this opponent you came across had a very immense and malicious aura, you will have to learn to overcome it and not give into it. Every time you move an inch, the pressure will become stronger so you need to learn to keep calm in this kind of situation and keep your thoughts straight."

Her body couldn't help but tremble due to the sudden pressure being put on her body, but the more her muscles moved the heavier the weight got. If this went on for much longer, she could easily get crushed by a mere book that shouldn't way more than a kilogram.

"Himeko, I see you are handling the weight a lot better than I expected." Sensei pointed out, watching her struggle. "Are you perhaps still using the ability given to you by that drug?"

She couldn't argue back no matter how much she wanted to. She wanted to curse right then and there, but she couldn't even think straight. Her hands haven't stopped shaking yet and the longer she sat there, the more she wanted to start crying and give up right away. So much for this being an easy task.

"Himeko, you still haven't done what I asked you to do."

_"I'm trying," _she replied to him in her head. _"Does it look like I have some sort of switch off button? Do I look like a fucking lightbulb to you?"_

Knowing that she was mentally cursing at him without being able to express it made him laugh. He then turned back to Bisky who was absorbed in her magazine. "Excuse me, how long are your students going to remain like that?"

Bisky looked up from her magazine and looked at the clock, "Two hours, fifty five minutes."

"Hm, so Himeko can stop five minutes after her friends are done." He announced as if three hours of sitting there with a book that kept getting heavier by the second wasn't a big deal.

_"So I have to sit here for three fucking hours with a fucking book on my head. Great! Fuck my life!"_

Sensei wasn't born yesterday. He didn't like to go through the hassle of training children which is why he avoided it like the plaque. Before meeting the three boys, he rejected every student that came his way looking for guidance as they didn't manage to pass his test. However, training those three was a challenge on it's own. Before they knew how to properly control their strength, they kept breaking things around the dojo and injuring themselves so it was a struggle for both him and them. When they found Himeko unconscious in the forest and Toshiro told him about Himeko being one of their kind, he was worried. He didn't want to raise another problem child, but he couldn't just abandon her there. He had a feeling that she would pass the test and gave his three students the responsibility of teaching her. After all, you learn a lot more when you are teaching.

When she first started, he noticed how harsh Toshiro and especially Natsume went on her. Haruko always had a soft spot for children, so he knew that he wouldn't go all out on her. He noticed that as time went by, Himeko was able to adjust to her life at the dojo and even be able to tame the harsh Toshiro. In the end, even he started letting her have her own way. Once again, that didn't surprise him at all. Toshiro always had a cold exterior, but once he liked someone he would warm up to them quickly. Natsume however disappointed him. He was never the type to judge a person by their gender or age and would make them step out of their comfort zone, just like how he was trained by Sensei. But Himeko even managed to make him change a little after she woke up from her coma after collapsing at the shrine.

"Natsume got his nasty way of not holding back when teaching from me," Sensei informed her. "You haven't been trained properly, if I taught you from the very beginning you would be a lot stronger than your two friends over there."

_"Well, I asked you to train me you geezer but you were all like 'No, I trust me students to train you'. Now you complain about not teaching me, what the fuck do you expect me to do?"_

The change in expression on her face, increased the pressure once again and it became more and more unbearable for her.

"Try to control the strength given to you by the drug and make sure it doesn't affect the training. I will give you a minute to figure out a way to do that, if you can't do it by then we will have to leave this place!"

_"A minute?! Are you crazy old man? How am I supposed to do it in a minute?!"_

"Concentrate child, you have to focus and find a way."

Himeko tried to relax her body as much as possible without moving too much. _"He is right, I have to focus. I can't afford to leave after telling Gon and Killua that I'll help them find Kite!"_ She thought about it, using the strength given to her by the drug was almost something she did without thinking too much now. It had become and unconscious process, just like blinking or breathing, so how was she possibly going to stop doing that. _"That's insane, I can't possibly stop blinking or brea- wait to stop breathing I can just tell myself to stop. I'd just have to hold my breath and I would stop breathing, blinking I can stop doing as well for some time. I have to try and tell myself to stop using so much strength at once, my normal physical strength would only be a little more than average of that of a girl my age. But how many girls my age do I even know?" _

One half of her brain was trying to keep in mind that there was a time limit to this, but the other half was trying to think of a girl her age. Unfortunately, she didn't have many girl friends and all the friends she had were naturally a lot stronger than average. Bisky was definitely out of the question, and so was Palm. Shinatobe was quite strong for a woman too due to the fact that she did a lot of physical labour.

"You don't have much time, Himeko." Sensei reminded her. The intense scene certainly managed to catch some attention. Palm was turning thumbs, hoping it would calm her down. If Himeko failed this, she didn't know what she would do to her so she was trying to control herself. Bisky found Sensei's training method rather interesting. She didn't know what this so called drug they were talking about was, but whatever it was it caught her attention. Gon and Killua were anxiously hoping that Himeko would come up with a way to do this.

_"Come on Kou, you can do this!"_ Gon cheered her on in his mind. He didn't want to interrupt her thinking, so he kept cheering her on quietly.

Killua was just as nervous as Gon. _"Think you moron, the solution to these kinds of things usually lie in front of you. Don't mess it up!"_

Himeko was still thinking of all the possible people that could be her age, but there weren't many she knew. _"A girl around my age with a similar built to me. Hold on a minute, why didn't I think of Hanako?!"_

That's right, she finally remembered her cousin from the side clan. Hanako was just a little taller than Himeko and she was a couple of months younger than her too. But she fit the description perfectly, and in addition their genetics were pretty similar too. Without any environmental influences, they should be around the same level but Himeko knew that she'd be stronger than Hanako as their lifestyles also played a big role. But there was no one else who would be a perfect fit other than her, and this was all or nothing. If this didn't work, then she'd be out of the game before it even began properly.

"Your time is nearly up!"

Himeko thought some more to back when she visited the side clan. Was there anything Hanako found too heavy to carry and asked others to help her with? Maybe seven kilos would be her limit, so Himeko should be able to lift around fifteen without her drug abilities. Fifteen kilos were equivalent to the weight of fifteen packs of plain four, or fifteen packs of sugar. _"I've got to try this."_

She kept her rough estimate in mind before giving it a shot. She tried to control her muscles so that they couldn't lift more than the said amount, and somehow it worked. As she kept going with that rough estimate, she felt the book getting much heavier which meant that it was working. However, the heaviness of the book was tempting her to use more power to keep it up without it trying to push her into the ground. Her neck and shoulders started hurting a lot, and she couldn't possibly imagine keeping that position for nearly three hours.

Sensei started to see her struggle to keep her upright position, "Not bad, it's not perfect but a promising start."

Thankfully, she somehow managed to pass. Palm proceeded to put the knife she was tightly gripping onto back into the kitchen, while the two boys smiled in relief before giving their best during their training. Bisky smiled to herself before she continued to read her magazine.

"You have two hours and fifty eight minutes left Himeko," Sensei informed her. "I will sit here and meditate until you are done."

It was a lot easier said than done. The book was certainly a lot heavier than fifteen kilos by now and it wasn't just the weight that was bothering her. The pressure just felt way too hard for her to handle for that long. Sensei was right, to her it did feel like _Ren,_ a pressure telling her to stay back and not come any closer but in this case, she couldn't escape from it either. Just like he explained, it wasn't to make her stronger physically. Himeko needed a confidence boost during fights. She was arrogant and could easily show her narcissistic side when she was comfortable, but in Sensei's point of view a little arrogance couldn't hurt. If she was confident in a fight, it would make her perform much better than if she kept doubting her own abilities and Sensei knew that.

To master martial arts one needed discipline too. A battle is usually fought both physically and mentally. She lacked the mentality of a fighter that both Gon and Killua already had and needed to learn to keep calm and composed during battles. If she did manage to learn this alone, she would become a lot stronger without the need for physical training. But of course if she did physical training without the drug's enhancement, she would once again be a lot stronger with the drug's power and her natural abilities combined. Has Sensei ever taught anyone this way before? No, Himeko was the first one to do this specific training method. He thought it all through and created a schedule to improve all her weak points; in other words it was a training schedule designed specially for her.

Both teachers started doing their own thing; one using the opportunity to meditate and the other was looking through a magazine full of half naked men. Palm was in the kitchen, and only loud chopping noises could be heard. Whether she was making dinner or cutting up a victim wasn't clear. Everyone was too busy to care anyway.

Forty minutes passed since Gon and Killua had started training, and Gon was starting to give in. Both were sweating streams, and after five more minutes of constant struggling he collapsed on the floor and gave up before gasping heavily for air. Bisky put her magazine away and stared at the two boys. Killua was still going, but he wasn't looking to good either.

Their attention turned towards the other side of the room after they heard a very loud _thud. _Himeko had been going for forty minutes and gave in just moments after Gon. The book made the loud sound as it fell on the floor and she fell on her back gasping for air. Two minutes later, Killua had finally given in with him being the one who kept up with his training for the longest but for the teachers it was still not long enough. It hadn't even been an hour for all three of them, and three hours was the time set.

Palm curiously peeked out of the kitchen into the living room, with her knife ready to slaughter anyone who had given up.

"Is that all you two morons can do?" Bisky yelled at her students. Hearing this, Gon was the first one to get up followed by Killua and they both started again. They failed the first time, so Bisky restarted the timer. Once again, they had to keep this up for three hours.

Himeko glanced at her friends before getting back up. She had to keep going too, the boys couldn't get ahead of her. Although she had somehow forgiven him, she couldn't forget Killua's words. _'Don't get in my way' _he said. He was right, she might have not gotten in his way but all three of them were just holding Kite back throughout their journey in NGL. She wanted to become strong enough so people like Killua could swallow their words after seeing her.

Sensei stood up and repeated his procedure by adding the aura to the book. Just like before, the sudden heaviness of the book caused her body to shake and her mind to go blank for a brief moment before she soon became used to it.

However, her determination didn't really help. Yes, she kept going but if she kept going like this she would just drop back onto the floor in a while. Sensei walked back to his spot shaking his head in disappointment. _"That child still hasn't figured out how to do this. Maybe I overestimated her."_

But while Sensei was thinking that, Himeko began to think whether there was a way to remain like that for three hours without giving up after a while. The intensity of the pressure will keep increasing even if she did her best to stay still. After all, she still had to breathe and blink which would also result in movement of muscles. Luckily for her, the _Ren_ didn't feel anything like Neferpitou's. She tried to remember that malicious aura from the night before and couldn't help but shudder at that thought. Compared to that, this pressure was nothing.

_"Ren,"_ she thought hard. _"This does sorta feel like Ren, but doesn't exactly feel evil or anything. Ren? Ren... Wait we are talking about Ren, right? Ren... Ren..." _Once it finally clicked, she mentally face palmed at her own stupidity. _"Oh my gosh, I have got to be the most idiotic person living on this planet. I've been doing this wrong all this time, no wonder it was a lot harder than I thought!"_

Although no one was paying any attention to her, they could all sense an aura coming from her direction all of the sudden. Gon and Killua weren't so sure what made her activate her _Ten_ all of the sudden. Palm once again put her knife back into the drawer after seeing a more determined Gon, Killua and Himeko. Bisky just smiled to herself before turning the page of her magazine,_ "it's about time she figured it out. Took her some time! Now all her teacher has to do is increase the pressure, it's still nothing compared to the Ren of elite Nen users out there."_

Sensei didn't bother praising her, he expected someone with her intelligence to figure it out a lot sooner. Himeko was smart, but she wasn't particularly sharp at times. For the past hour she was searching for the answer on the surface before digging deeper. For most of the time she didn't even bother searching, she was bearing the weight without giving it much thought. In his opinion, he was still going way too easy on her. Netero had given them a month to accomplish what could take a year to do, and at the rate Himeko was going she could sit there for a year and still not be ready.

In order for her to be ready after the month, he had to push her out of her comfort zone even if it was by brute force.

Sensei stood up again and walked towards the proud Himeko who had found a way to deal with his training method, but he was still not satisfied. She shouldn't look so comfortable or proud, she should be sweating and clenching her teeth right now. He touched the book yet again, but this time it was nothing like the first time.

_"This is..." _the pressure on her increased by a lot, and the aura didn't feel that friendly either. What she did before was child's play, this was the real thing. _"This feels familiar... back in Yorkshin I've felt this before!" _The pressure was no where as vicious as Neferpitou's and she doubted that Sensei could ever produce such an evil aura to begin with but this did bring back some memories._ "Back when the Phantom Troupe captured us for the first time, it's the same feeling as when Hisoka was threatening us not to move and help Gon from Nobunaga's grips. To think that Sensei is able to produce such a blood lusting aura similar to Hisoka's..."_

"Two hours, fifty minutes." Sensei reminded her before quietly making his way back. His job was done for now, he wasn't prepared to help her out anymore. She had to do the rest alone.

_"How am I supposed to last like this for nearly three hours? It's like being locked up in a room alone with Hisoka who hasn't had any of his fun in a while,"_ the possibility of that just made her gulp. What made things worse was her imagination. After thinking about it, she started to imagine just that. Her sitting in her place right now being unable to move and Hisoka sitting right in front of her, staring at her with a murderous intent. Her breathing became heavy, and she couldn't stop that feeling of being nearly eaten alive. Her mentality was in a state of total disarray compared to her previous calm composure. She had to first calm down fast, and then focus on keeping up her _Ten_. _"Calm down Himeko, just imagine Hisoka smiling in a much friendlier manner and giving our strawberry shortcake to little children with you being one of the kids receiving the cake." _

Sadly, it did no good. Hisoka smiling nicely and giving out cake while being surrounded by that murderous aura just made him seem a lot creepier than he already was. _"Okay, scratch the cake! Hisoka is after your brother Himeko, you have to protect your older brother from him at all costs. If you are sitting here trying to imagine him giving out cake and then getting creeped out even more by him, it isn't going to do you any good. If he goes after Hakuryuu nii-sama, I don't have time to try and imagine a nice Hisoka. I have to look that fucker in the eyes and tell him to get __away from my brother!"_

As time went by, Sensei started to sense her now stronger _Ten_. She was still not completely fine with it but she had somehow gotten used to it with whatever method she tried using. Whether her intent was to protect herself from the _Ren_ or whether she wanted to protect someone close from it didn't matter, as long as she had the courage to come face to face with it was enough.

...

Three hours went by, and after overexerting themselves the trio could finally stop. It didn't take long for all three of them to fall asleep on the spot but Bisky and Sensei considered this as a well-deserved rest. Sensei covered Himeko's body with a blanket as she was snoring and sound asleep. Bisky was busy using her ability to give the boys a massage so they could continue their training with full power once they were awake again. While Cookie-chan did her job relaxing their muscles, Bisky waited.

"That is a really interesting ability you have there," Sensei pointed out. "But I'd rather skip all the small talk and get to the point first."

"About your student?"

"That's right, and about your two students too." He added. "Only two of them have to fight Netero's assassins to pass. Himeko is still not fit to fight in my opinion."

"So you want these two to go and fight?" She asked before he could finish his sentence. "That's perfectly fine with me, but wouldn't it be at disadvantage to your own student?"

"She was caught up in a little incident for a couple of months at the end of last year and ended up having to fight a war," Sensei explained, which slightly surprised Bisky. "Long story short, a specialist _Nen_ ability caused her to relive a war that took place five hundred years ago in Yeddo. Himeko was forced to fight and even told me about having to lead her own squad into battle. She doesn't lack leadership skills and neither does she lack the ability to face a large crowd all alone. She can think in those situations but she does lack the confidence and mentality to face someone stronger than her. As her teacher, I need to first make her overcome that sudden urge of wanting to give up and run away whenever she comes across someone who is stronger."

"I understand, but she will still require combat training. I'm fine with sending Gon and Killua out but it would be at her loss like I said. I noticed her being a little clueless and not noticing certain things when she should have picked up on earlier." She pointed out. "Out of Gon and Killua, Gon is the most inexperienced when it comes to real combat. Killua has a lot more experience compared to both Gon and Himeko, but Gon has enough determination to make up for that. Maybe it would be better to keep Killua behind and send Gon and Himeko to fight instead."

Sensei shook his head in response, disagreeing with her. "Killua may be stronger than the two and be more experienced too, but his story doesn't just end there. It seems as if that boy is also frightened by something according to our informant, isn't that right?" He looked back at Palm who was listening in on the conversation. "Gon had convinced the two to continue which is why they agreed to train but both Himeko and Killua seem to be disheartened by something. If we do not figure out what the reasons are, those two wouldn't be able to fight to the best of their ability when the time comes."

"I did notice something with Killua," Bisky agreed to his point. "But I'll have to see how it goes."

"For Himeko I have a suspicion on the way she was brought up. I've heard from my other students that her parents had always compared her to her older sibling; so to this day she still feels the need to compare herself to others and feels disheartened whenever they end up being better than her. My oldest student referred to it as an early stage of something they call inferiority complex at this time of age. According to him it could become much worse if she doesn't snap out of it soon enough."

_"Inferiority complex, huh?"_ Bisky started thinking. "Does she perhaps know about it?"

"She seems to be completely aware of the fact that she feels inferior to others, but she does not know how to properly deal with it. My priority is to get that inferior feeling out of her head so she can at least think straight during a fight. She needs to understand that it is normal to come across someone better than you sometimes."

"I feel like I can somehow try and help her during my stay. It would be a nice change to talk with a girl instead of dealing with two boys."

"I'd really appreciate that, but what are you going to do with your own student?"

"Killua doesn't seem to have noticed his problem yet, he is smart so I will give him some time to figure it out by himself. If that doesn't work out then I'll just have to step in and give him a little push."

"I'm assuming that you will be sending those two out to fight soon."

_"Am I that easy to read?"_ She thought. "I was thinking of sending them out tomorrow at night. Until then, I will have them continue their training."

"I didn't expect any less, while those two are gone Himeko will have more space to train in here."

"You aren't going to send her with the boys to at least watch?"

"I won't allow her to, she could use that time to train herself. If she is eager to watch her friends fight, she would just have to find a way around."

Bisky couldn't help but feel a little sorry for Himeko. She thought she was a strict teacher but Sensei just took the cake. If she wanted to go out and watch them fight at night, according to him she would have to find a way out without getting noticed. Easier said than done when it comes to _Nen_ masters who could use _En_.

"Excuse me," Palm interrupted the conversation. "If those three don't pass then I don't think I'll be able to hold myself back anymore. I'm already doing my best to control myself."

"Was that a threat?" Bisky asked.

Palm shook her head. "It was just a warning, I care about all of you after all. It would be a waste if I'd have to kill you."

Sensei went and got himself comfortable on the floor, leaning against the wall. "I can't afford to get killed by you child, I still have three other students, a dojo and a shrine to look after."

Palm then looked at Bisky waiting for her response. She just shrugged, "Don't tell me, tell those three when they wake up!" Palm looked around at the three snoring peacefully. They already tried their best that day, so hopefully they would be in shape when the time comes to move out.

...

**4:30 AM**

It was still very early morning, and everyone was still asleep. Well nearly everyone. Sensei woke up long ago and he expected his student to be responsible and wake up too sooner or later but all Himeko did was roll over once in a while into all kinds of different yoga poses and continue snoring. Then again, he shouldn't have expected anything more from her in the first place. He tried waiting patiently, then he tried calling her name a couple of times but none of these actually worked. In the end he had to resort to the old trick with a bucket of cold water.

Himeko who still couldn't swim started having a nightmare about herself drowning once she was showered in the water and couldn't help but gasp for air once she was finally awake. After finally calming down, she looked over at the clock and narrowed her eyes at Sensei. Gon and Killua were still snoring away while Bisky was still asleep on the sofa. Even Palm was still dreaming of her Knov-sensei, so why was she the only one who had to wake up?

"Sensei, it's not even five in the morning." She reminded him, pointing at the large clock hanging on the wall.

"It doesn't matter, mornings are the best times to start training." He told her before putting the bucket back where he found it. "Wake up, get changed, eat something and get ready to start."

"Why are you awake in the first place?" Himeko asked him, groggily making her way inside the toilet. "Aren't you like two hundred or something, I swear old men are supposed to sleep a whole lot more than this."

Before she could enter the toilet, Sensei gave her a good punch on the head; good enough to fully wake her up. "Ouch, why do you have to start child abusing so early in the morning?!"

"Be quiet and get ready," Sensei ordered sternly. "You will spend the whole day training so don't waste any more of your time."

She rubbed her head before making her way inside the toilet to first change her clothes and dry her hair. She then got ready to start her training coming out in a pair of loose blue gym shorts, a plain white t-shirt with the letter H printed on it and blue trainers (or sneakers; depends on where you live). She made herself some toast and tea before taking it to the living room and sitting on the floor.

"So what's up for today?" She asked as she started eating her buttered toast.

"You will go out for a run," Sensei explained.

She stopped chewing, "That's it? A run?"

Sensei took out a map of the city which had a 'route' marked on it with a red marker. But looking at this, either Sensei fell asleep while marking the route or he just can't draw normal lines.

"You will run around the whole city once and continue running through each and every street including all the alleys."

"Sensei, I'm not trying to take part in the Olympics. I'm trying to get strong enough to fight those ants. What good is running going to do?" (A/n- Oh, Himeko. If only you knew how much I'm going to make you run xD)

"You cannot use your _Nen_ or the drugs ability to help you."

"Sensei, could you please stop bringing up drug talk every time we talk about training? You make me sound like a drug addict."

"If you understand then it's fine," he nodded in satisfaction. "Also, Natsume used these when he was around your age for a similar training activity I gave him. The only difference is that I made him run up the mountain, through the forest and to the town. Unfortunately there are no mountains and dangerous forests here."

He put a pair of wrist weights and ankle weights on the table. "They are only twenty kilos each, but that should be enough to keep you occupied for now. We can increase the weight by the day."

_"This geezer is seriously trying to kill me before I even get a chance to go back to NGL, isn't he?"_

"What are you waiting for, if you don't start now the streets are going to start getting busy."

Himeko sighed before standing up and placing her mug into the kitchen sink. She then returned and strapped on the ankle weights before putting on the wrist weights. At first, they didn't really feel like they were much of a deal but she had to remember that this had to be done with her own abilities. "I'm off then!"

**Two and a half hours later**

Himeko stumbled down the corridor leading to their apartment before opening the door to find everyone gathered up in the living room, happily eating breakfast without her.

"Ah, Kou! You are finally here!" Gon greeted her, before she walked over and joined them.

"You lucky bastards," she quietly mumbled under her breath.

Sensei who was also eating began to ask her how the morning training went. "Did you have a good run?"

Himeko thought back to all the things that happened. She ran past druggies and old men that were passed out from drinking too much, trying to grab her leg while running; as if the ankle weights weren't heavy enough, she had to drag those bastards along too. Then there was a cat she tried to get off a tree and she ended up getting her cheek scratched. She then had a horde of angry stray dogs chasing her for some time.

"Never. Again."

"Why not, you'll have to do this again tomorrow morning with heavier weights. You seem fine with twenty kilos, so we'll try thirty five tomorrow."

Himeko was getting pretty irritated at this point, and Gon was the only one who felt a need to try and calm her down. "Kou, want some Coco Pops?" In the end, she just turned to him and started glaring. As if a bowl of cereal and milk was really going to calm her down at that moment of time. "Never mind..."

Once they were done eating, Bisky continued training the boys from where she left off yesterday while Sensei did the same. After a whole day of training with a couple of breaks in between three hour shifts, Bisky announced that the boys were allowed to go and fight Knuckle which surprised the two of them. They didn't expect to be allowed to go out this early after only training for two days. But there was still a question left unanswered.

"What about me?" Himeko asked, wondering why Bisky hadn't addressed her although she clearly was part of the group. Bisky wanted her to go as well but that didn't change the fact that Sensei had other plans. All she could do was shrug and shake her head in response.

"Why? Can't she come with us?" Killua questioned.

Sensei decided to take over and answer his question. "Himeko still isn't prepared to go on and fight, she will remain her with me continue her training."

"But why? I trained just as much as Gon and Killua," she pointed out. "I deserve to go as much as they do. Do I really have to stand back and let them do all the work?"

"If you choose to do whatever you want, you can go ahead and pack your belongings so we can go back home." He suggested. "But if it hurts your pride that much, why don't you continue training until you are fit to leave with your friends? I mean you've been wearing those ankle weights and wrist weights all day and have gotten used to them pretty quickly, I'm sure it won't take you that long. Patience is a virtue, Himeko." Sensei told her before he left to continue his own meditation.

Himeko took a moment to look at both her wrist and ankles to see that she had indeed forgotten to take them off after going for a run in the morning. She planted her head in the floor in frustration, "I can feel my IQ decreasing, I'm becoming dumber by the minute!"

"Cheer up!" Gon said, crouching down next to her. "We'll win and bring those tokens home so we can all go to NGL together, right Killua?"

Killua let out a loud sigh before agreeing with his friend, "Right, leave it to us!"

She lifted her head and looked at them with doubtful expression.

"You don't trust us, do you?" Gon asked.

"Nope!"

Killua pulled her cheeks in annoyance, "Listen up, I told you to leave it to us so you better still be training when Gon and I come back from the fight, understood?"

"Yeash, siar!" (Yes, sir)

He let go and stood back up. "Let's leave, Gon!"

"Yeah!"

Bisky was literally the only one who waved those two goodbye while Palm was just trying to control her murderous tenancies and Himeko was still bummed out. Once the left, Bisky turned to Himeko. "Now with them gone, why don't we go and take a bath together?"

"No," Himeko rejected her offer. "I don't like taking baths with strangers!"

"Oh come on, it's a perfect opportunity to get to know each other." Bisky wouldn't take a no for an answer. Since Himeko wouldn't budge, she just ended up dragging her across the floor towards the bathroom. She then turned to Palm. "You can join us too if you'd like." Palm wasted no time to race to her room and get out a spare change of clothes and a towel for herself. _"That was quick..."_. Bisky continued to lead the way to the bathroom with one enthusiastic young woman and a now slightly pissed off young girl following.

_"To think that I'd end up taking a bath with an old woman in the body of a twelve year old, and Sadako from The Ring."_

Sensei isn't allowing our young protagonist to help Gon and Killua out, will she find a way around this problem? And Bisky suddenly requested a girl talk with Himeko, will that be any good? Find out in the next action packed chapter of Dragonba- I mean HunterxHime!

* * *

**A/n-** Well, not much plot movement here so sorry about that. And I'm sorry for focusing more on Himeko than Gon and Killua. In the anime they just had to continue staying in their Ren positions like that until Bisky was finally done looking through her magazines while Palm was trying to control her cray cray inner self.

Ps. Sorry, I had to much sugar today so I'm a little hyper XD

**Review Corner**

**SilverDewDrop - **I didn't take my laptop to my dad because while trying to fix it he'd give me a lecture on how he spends so much money on me and I just go breaking things. I'd rather have the fixing done minus the lecture, so I asked my bro xD

**Lucas Nee-chan -** You're welcome, and thank you for the review :D

**SlightlyYandereMelissa -** Kou shall stop talking about fricking tampons xD

**Guest -** It actually depends on how free I am and how hard the chapter is to write. Some chapters are harder to write than others while others such as this one aren't. Let me just say every few days for now (I'm not really being helpful, am I?) I don't know, it's hard to keep a fixed date when using the word 'regularly' but I'll update as much as I can before school starts. Also, thanks for the review and I'm glad the slightly serious chapter still made you laugh!

**Queechi -** Good luck for that tournament thingy! :D

**JJ - **Hey, I have a feeling that this reply will be long so bear with me!

She was very reserved as a child because her parents taught her not to speak unless she was required to. She changed because it's been nearly 5-6 years since the drug testing incident. She is 13 right now, so 5-6 years is nearly half her lifetime. That's a very long time! Since then, I have mentioned a couple of times here and there that in order to survive she had to make cash by doing hard physical labour which the drug actually helped her with. I have also mentioned that because she was new to her abilities, she was often fired for breaking things so she had to somehow 'become' a more talkative person in order to get more jobs. To survive the real world out there she had to take more initiative and learn how to deal with people. In one way or another she started to gain more experience and also get 'people skills' which once again was mentioned and shown quite a few times during the story.

Himeko was quite a judgmental person at the start of the series, but she usually kept all her rude remarks to herself. She never considered herself close to anyone to actually say it out loud, so yes your theory is somewhat right. Although the others didn't exactly catch her attention at first, Gon surely did and she started to become more comfortable to say her thoughts out loud. Why she is so narcissistic and self absorbed sometimes (apart from a comedic relief) will be explained further in the next couple of chapters but it has something to do with what Sensei mentioned in this chapter about her being really insecure and feeling inferior to others. Some people with inferiority complex would often boast to make themselves feel better.

I'm actually planning to use the Election arc to reveal more about the dojo trio's past. Himeko will have nothing physical to do in that arc. Even in this fic, Killua and Leorio will be the only ones 'active' in it, but she will still be there. I did describe their physical appearances once but that was quite long ago so I'll do it again for you.

Haruko - Mid twenties, tallest, slightly tanned due to his constant travelling, dark brown hair and brown eyes. Occasionally grows a stubble and gets too lazy to shave it off. Most masculine looking out of the three.

Toshiro - Shorter than Haruko, messy black hair, dark eyes, and Himeko described him as quite handsome when they first met. He is Leorio's age.

Natsume - Shortest and youngest, around Kurapika's age. Strawberry blonde hair, hazel eyes and has more of a cheeky and boyish aura compared to the others.

Their personalities are actually very different, so just by personalities you could easily tell them apart. In this arc only Toshiro and Natsume will be appearing and you can tell that Natsume is a lot more easy going and enjoys pulling pranks. He is also the one that enjoys fighting the most and takes them seriously. Toshiro is more uptight and is quick tempered. He isn't the type to warm up to people easily. As for their pasts, once again Election arc (sorry, I'm sure I'm going to get hit if I say that one more time). You can guess what could have happened that ties their pasts together, why those three ended up the way they did and whether they had a reason to become the way they are right now. Of course, a lot of the personality traits used so far are for comedic purposes and I was waiting for a more serious arc such as this and the next to introduce them more 'formally'. Maybe some of their comedic traits such as Haruko's over protective big brother persona may or may not have something to do with their pasts. All you can do is try guessing until I reveal it towards the end of the series :)


	47. Girl Talk

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 47**

_Girl talk_

...

Bisky somehow managed to drag Himeko along with Palm into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. It looked like there was no escape from her that moment, not that Palm actually minded. Himeko on the other hand did mind a lot. Palm started to fill the tub before she started to get ready to take the bath along with Bisky. Himeko stubbornly stood by the door with her arms crossed, refusing to join them.

"What are you waiting for?" Bisky asked her once she noticed how she wouldn't budge from her spot.

"I told you before, I don't like taking baths with strangers," Himeko firmly stood with her initial decision, "as a matter of fact, I don't like to take baths with anyone. It's weird, I'd rather spend my time alone in the bathtub than be surrounded by others."

"Don't be so difficult," Bisky sighed in frustration, "just cooperate and join us!"

"I refuse!"

Bisky thought hard to find a way to get her to agree and got an idea. Himeko was a girl after all, and just like all girls she'd be offended if she brought up a touchy topic. "Let me guess, you have belly fat and don't want us to see it."

"Nice try, but I won't get offended by something that is not true."

_"Why is this girl so stubborn?!_" Bisky asked herself. "Come on, we aren't strangers. If you are friends with Gon and Killua then you are my friend too."

"It's not a matter of being friends or not, I usually bathe alone and it's more comfortable that way. It's something you two hags won't understa-"

Before Himeko could even finish her sentence, Bisky tightly gripped onto her ear and started pulling hard. Her expression darkened before she continued to warn Himeko, "It's Bisky, not hag. Nee-chan would do too, but even that would be pushing it, understand?" Without hesitation, Himeko started to nod hoping she would let go. Once Bisky let go, Himeko took a few steps back and stood in a much safer distance. "Now, let's refrain from using any sorts of offensive terminology."

Himeko started to pout before clicking her tongue, _"Where do I keep finding these strange people from?" _But in the end she gave in, Bisky wasn't the type to let go of something so easily and Himeko also feared for her life with Palm still in the room with her. She could safely assume that Palm could somehow summon a large kitchen knife if she was angry enough. But now that she thought about it, she didn't know how to start.

She started off by slowly but awkwardly taking off her shirt and a burn mark on her waist came in sight. Once her t-shirt was off, they saw that it wasn't just any ordinary burn but a lot more than that. "A brand?" Bisky asked. Without answering her question, Himeko continued to take off the rest of her clothes, quickly washed her body and stepped into the bath tub. Staring in general was very uncomfortable, not just for her but everyone in that matter. People staring at your insecurity was a lot worse. Bisky just sighed and decided to join her while Palm was the last one to join. Although they were a little crammed in the tub, they somehow all fit. Two of them were kid quite small after all.

"It's a human brand," Himeko answered Bisky's earlier question, "it's not something to be proud of, so I refrain from showing it to anyone let alone say that I have something like this on my waist."

Although Bisky felt a little bad for making her reveal something so personal, she felt determined to find out more about it. "Were you perhaps enslaved." Both Palm and Himeko looked at her in surprise. She didn't seem to be prepared to drop the topic any time soon.

"What's the definition of a slave anyway? A person owned by someone else or having their freedom stripped away, is that it?" She asked. "In that case, I wasn't one but I was close to being one." She then continued to explain further so the two of them could get a better idea of what she was talking about. "You see, I'm from the Inoue clan, a clan that isolated themselves from others. Five years ago, my clan was murdered and my brother, one of our servants and I were the only ones who made it out alive. I don't know what happened to my brother after that, but I ended up being sold into a research facility that created a drug to enhance the human's natural abilities. They say children are more resilient than adults, so a lot of the test subjects there were children and I was one of them. Of course, if we survived all the doses given to us and received proper training, we would have been sold to wealthier families as their private bodyguards."

"And you managed to escape I'm assuming."

"That's right, I did receive a couple doses of the drug but before I became a 'completed human fighting machine' I managed to escape along with some other children who were in the same cell as me. Three of them actually live with me at Sensei's dojo. It sure is a small world, isn't it?"

_"That must be the drug they were talking about yesterday,"_ Bisky thought. "But doesn't that feel good getting all this weight off your shoulders?"

"Not particularly, I just don't like thinking about it but I tend to not care about it anymore. The past is the past, what's gone will never come back. Of course there are certain things I want back, but in the end there is nothing I can do about that. I can just continue living as I am and hope for the best."

"Gon told me that you are looking for your brother," Bisky mentioned before thinking back to the little things both the boys have told her about Himeko while they were back in Greed Island. "They said you were going to join them for Greed Island but were unable to come along."

"Yeah, I was planning on helping Gon complete the game but in the end I got a call from someone informing me that my brother was in our hometown," Himeko continued to explain, "but I went home and couldn't find him. I did manage to catch a glimpse of him while he was leaving in the train, but that was all I got. I guess I should be happy with the fact that he is still alive and well, so I can't complain."

"Your brother, is he older?" Palm asked curiously. It seemed like Bisky wasn't the only one curious about her.

"He is quite a lot older than me, I think it's eight years."

"That's a big age gap..." Bisky commented.

"It is, and that might be the reason why we stopped talking after reaching a certain age. My parents wanted me to grow up to be just like him, sometimes I felt like my name shouldn't be Himeko but 'Hakuryuu's younger sister', or Hakura because that at least sounds similar to Hakuryuu."

"Was he really that smart?"

"Smarter than anyone I know. You have to consider the fact that I was born when he was eight and we got separated when he was sixteen. As a child, he could even give a lot of the adults in our clan a run for their money."

Bisky started to slowly understand Himeko's way of thinking. She was angry at the fact that her brother had always been smarter than her, and frustrated that she could never surpass him no matter how hard she tried. If she got a 90 in her test, it wasn't enough because her brother scored 98 on the same test when he was her age. Her parents seemed to have made an impression on her that he was a lot smarter than her and she pretty much stopped trying as she didn't think that there was any point to it anymore. She was always under the impression that she would never exceed him and she eventually came to accept that fact. It was pretty evident by how she spoke about him in a bragging tone. As Sensei had told her, the roots to her inferiority came from her parents and the times where she was compared to someone who seemed almost unreachable but could have been reached if she was given more encouragement. Now it just became a very bad habit, something that was highly unnecessary. The need for her to compare herself to everyone she meets, judging them based on their looks, skills, intelligence, talents and in the end only feeling a lot less worthy. A martial artist needs to be able to observe and fully understand their opponent, but there should be a limit. One cannot be over analytical and start to overestimate their opponent.

"Want me to wash your back for you?" Bisky asked out of no where.

"What?"

"Come on, don't just stare at me like that. We are all girls, I don't see the problem."

_"Technically I'm the only girl here, the two of you would be considered women."_

"Himeko, I hope you aren't calling me old inside your head." Bisky warned before dragging her out of the tub and sitting her down on a stool. She took a bar of soap along with a loafer. "That reminds me, you probably haven't had anyone wash your back before right? Did you always take a bath alone as a child too?"

Himeko thought back, "Well yes, two of our maids would usually just prepare the bath and watch over me just in case I accidentally managed to drown or something like that. But I never exactly had anyone take a bath with me as a child, I would usually do those things alone."

"Even after growing up?"

"I usually refrain from changing my clothes or wearing anything cropped because of the *brand, it's not something I want others to see." (*She is talking about the mark on her waist and not a clothing brand btw, it's called a human brand) Bisky started to wash her back with the loafer as she continued to listen. But thinking about it some more, Bisky wasn't completely wrong. She took baths with Shinatobe back when she was still in Yeddo, but she only agreed to bathe once it was dark. "I did bathe with someone else but that was at night so they couldn't see much."

"Getting your back washed by someone else feels good, doesn't it?" Bisky asked before she looked over at Palm who was still relaxing in the tub. "I'll wash your back afterwards if you'd like."

Palm nodded shyly, "alright!"

"You know Himeko, not everyone can be good at everything. Some people tend to exceed at one thing, while others exceed at something else. One person can't simply be able to do everything, it doesn't work like that."

Bisky had a point, but Himeko knew that before she even brought the topic up. "I know, but I still can't help it. It's like I've been programmed to do this."

"I guess it's time for you to break that bad habit then." she said. "You are a smart girl, so why would you want something so stupid keeping you back all the time? Don't you feel like you'd become a much better fighter without that constant thought in your head?"

"That's easier said than done," Himeko pointed out.

"You can't keep over analysing everything. Don't judge a book by its cover, but you don't need to read every single word to know its content." It was Bisky's form of saying that there are some things that don't need to be known, or are better not to be known by the individual. "You have to stop thinking about things too much. Saying 'vast, azure ocean up in the sky, covered in white cotton clouds' doesn't change the fact that the sky is blue and will stay blue during day."

_"Damn, she does have a good point..." _Himeko told herself. _"Is it just me or is she lecturing me? The fact that she doesn't look like an old lady doesn't change the fact that she still acts like one."_

"You are done! You can go on and hop back inside the tub while I wash Palm's back."

While Bisky was washing Palm's back in silence, Himeko decided to spend a while thinking about what she said. For Himeko the experience turned out to be a little surprising. She would have never thought that someone would tell her to think less, if anything everyone told her to think more. Maybe it was just that she didn't think about the right things at times, just like how she completely forgot to think of a easier way to deal with Sensei's challenge yesterday. Instead of focusing on the most important aspects she tends to focus on the overall picture including the things that aren't important. 'Thinking' might not even be the right word to use, she had to focus a lot more especially when she is put under a lot of pressure. Sensei put her under pressure over the past two days; literally, and it took her long to even think straight. If that happened during a real fight, she would have been dead by the time she could even think of a way out. That thought alone was haunting, and she kept telling herself that she had to pull herself together over the next month.

As she remained quiet in the tub, Palm and Bisky were the only ones talking. Palm was quite talkative if you let her talk, and just like any other girl she would easily go off topic. Her crazy antics were most likely caused by stress; or that's what Bisky thought. Palm didn't talk much about herself in particular but was more willing to talk about her teacher who was also her long time crush as well as Knuckle and Shoot whom she hated to shreds. The fact that it was her first time taking a bath with female friends flustered her a little but she was also quite excited at the same time.

A couple of minutes of soaking in the hot water made Himeko a bit dizzy. It was a clear sign for her to get out of the tub and start drying herself. After putting on a clean set of clothes, Himeko left the bathroom closing the door behind her because the other two were still inside. She turned to look at the clock. Nearly and hour had past since Gon and Killua had left and there was still no sign of them. None of them had an idea of how strong Morel's disciples truly were so she could just hope that they didn't get beat up by them.

Himeko sighed and started to walk towards the fridge in the kitchen. She opened it and looked for a bottle of water before taking it out and closing the fridge again. She looked over at the clock in the kitchen once again. It was nearly one o'clock in the morning, and Himeko had wasted nearly an hour of training time. She was surprised that Sensei didn't bang on the door for staying in the bathroom so long like he usually did back home.

_"Maybe I should train until two and then go back to sleep,"_ she thought, chugging down a few gulps of the chilled water._ "If I wake up at four and start training at five, I will get two hours done in the morning. Then I can come back home, eat and do some more training. From nine to twelve, then from one to four, five to eight and lastly nine till midnight. So in a day that would be around fourteen hours of training every day, but it's still too little considering that I will only be given less than a month to do so. Maybe I should try and wear the ankle and wrist weights all day long, just like how we trained at Killua's place last year. I'm too scared to cut down on sleep, but I could always ask Sensei to turn up the difficulty. Oh who am I kidding, I can't even deal with what he tells me to do already so how am I -"_

Her thoughts were cut short when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see Bisky shaking her head in disappointment, "see, you are thinking too much again."

_"As much as I hate people pointing out the obvious, she does have a valid point." _Himeko let out a deep breath before relaxing her shoulders and returning a small smile.

"Now that that's sorted!" A mischievous smile crept up on her face, sending a chill down Himeko's spine. "It's Bisky time!"

_"What the-" _

Before she could even finish cursing, Bisky dragged her out of the kitchen back into a corner of the living room with Palm already waiting there. After making her sit down, Bisky soon disappeared and came back with a handful of different items. Among them were some crisps (or chips if you're not British), some chilled beverages, a few bottles of different nail polishes, some face masks and some other really unnecessary items.

Himeko sat there dumbfounded as Bisky grabbed her hand and started to examine it from every angle. "Is something wrong with my hand?"

"Shh!" Bisky shushed her, "I'm thinking!"

_"Okay then..."_

Bisky then scanned the nail polish bottles, neatly arranged in a single line beside her until her eyes finally landed on the bottle with pale pink nail polish. "Perfect!" She chirped before she moved on to Palm. For Palm, Bisky chose a dark purple colour and then picked out a much more brighter and peppier pink colour for herself.

"Am I not meant to be training?" Himeko asked, watching Bisky twist open the pale pink nail polish bottle. "Unless _that_ will somehow make me stronger."

"You've trained the whole day, you shouldn't exhaust your body. Take this one hour to relax and take some things off your mind, 'kay?"

"But the deadline is in less than a month, I don't think I'd be read-"

Bisky cut her off again, "all Gon and Killua are going to be doing for the month is what they've been doing today. They will have to maintain their _Ren_ for three hours and if they fail, they will have to start again. After that, I will be sending them out to fight Knuckle. Comparing my training method to how you are most likely thinking of training, you put way too much on your plate; a lot more than you can handle. It will do your body more harm than good."

"Excuse me while I interrupt," Palm butted into their little argument. "But will these three be ready by the end of the month? If not, then I don't think I can control myself."

Bisky who noticed the dark aura around Palm thickening decided to shift the attention onto Himeko. "Don't ask me, she's awake today so ask her."

_"Thanks for nothing," _Himeko narrowed her eyes at Bisky after seeing Palm slowly taking a knife out of no where. _"So I have three options, I can go back to NGL and become ant food, fail and get butchered by Sadako here or just run away and get disowned by Sensei."_ She proceeded to scratch her head. _"Hmm... hard choice, they are all shitty options." _Both of Palm's hands were holding the handle of the knife, shaking as she was trying to remain calm. Seeing this, Himeko tried to reassure her. "I'll do my best!" It was a really bad answer, but when it came to something like this she just didn't want to get someone's hopes up and fail miserably.

"Trying your best is not good enough for me, you must beat those uncivilised apes and get me into NGL."

Seeing Palm struggle more and more to keep steady hands, Himeko continued to try and calm her down. "Calm down, and please put that knife away! Safety come first!" Palm somehow came to grips with herself remembering that there were still weeks until the deadline, and Bisky continued to paint Himeko's nails as if nothing had just happened. She sighed,_"why was I left behind with these two crazies, I'd rather go fight with Gon and Killua."_

"That reminds me," Bisky tried to keep the conversation going by changing the topic to something completely irrelevant, "do you two perhaps like someone?" An awkward silence surrounded the trio. While Palm started to nervously turn her thumbs trying to stutter out an answer, Himeko just started blankly at Bisky who was still fixed on painting her nails normally. Hearing no one denying anything or any answer for that matter, Bisky looked up and looked at dumbstruck Himeko and fidgety Palm. "You two are too easy to read..."

"I don't see any proof, so you can't wrongly accuse me!" Himeko shot back, but now that Bisky had some juicy information to dig into, she didn't want to back down.

"Come on, spill it you two!" She ordered, first staring right into Himeko's eyes while tightly holding onto her hands hoping for an answer. "Who is it Kou? Gon, or maybe Killua?"

At the mention of Gon's name, Palm's ears perked up and she glared straight at Himeko as the eerie aura around her thickened once again. "Gon? You like Gon?" Noticing that Palm was getting dangerously close, Himeko shuffled back nervously trying to remain in a safe distance.

"I don't like either of them." She cleared up, hoping the two of them would stop staring so hard at her. "I like someone else."

"That's a shame, you seem to get along well with Gon and Killua." Bisky then shook her shoulders, trying to get more information out of her. "Who is it, is it someone in your friends circle?" Himeko hesitantly nodded her head in response to which Bisky's curiosity just grew. "Do you have a picture?" Himeko nodded once again, only to make Bisky a lot more interested. "Show me, show me!"

"No, you know enough as it is!"

Bisky just shrugged indifferently, "never mind, I'll just ask Killua or Gon when they come back. They should know who it is."

"Don't!" Himeko cut in, "I'll show you." Bisky smiled in victory waiting for Himeko to reluctantly take out her phone. She took a close look at the picture she showed, giving her a thumbs up approving her choice. Bisky then continued to stare even harder at the pciture. The more she stared at the phone screen, the more uncomfortable Himeko grew. She snatched it back and hid her phone behind her back, "that's enough staring at Kurapika, now talk about something else."

"Don't worry, he's attractive but not my type." Bisky reassured her. She'd rather stick to the buff men in the magazines anyway. "That reminds me Kou, how old is he? He looks pretty tall."

Himeko thought a little before answering, "I think he is seventeen."

"Kou, he is nearly a legal adult..."

Himeko just shrugged the topic off as if it were no big deal, "age doesn't matter when it comes to these things. It's just a number!"

"And jail is just a room too..."

That's when it actually struck her. "Damn, I never actually thought of that. That means I have to wait five years, that's forever!" Himeko spent a brief moment inside her thinking bubble before gasping. "Oh my god, what if he finds a girlfriend while I'm busy growing up? I mean anything is possible in five years, right? And the world is full of pretty woman, and Kurapika is a full package as well." She suddenly got a determined look on her face. "It looks like the Chimera ants aren't my only enemy!"

Bisky lightly rubbed her back to calm her down, "You are over thinking things again."

"That reminds me," Himeko seemed to have remembered something important all of the sudden. "Don't tell the boys about this. They'll tease me if they find out."

"I won't," Bisky reassured her which somehow managed to put her mind at ease. But Bisky wasn't done, "but on one condition. You have to let me do your hair." Bisky smiled, only to leave Himeko tilting her head in confusion. "I don't have anyone to try new hairstyles on. Oh, and there were some cute stores in town so you would have to accompany me there on your next day off."

_"She is basically just blackmailing me now."_

"Okay moving on to your other hand," she said, taking Himeko's unpainted hand and starting to paint her nails. Himeko remained relatively quiet, hoping Bisky wouldn't try and force any other juicy bits of information out of her. Instead, Bisky moved onto Palm who was embarrassed to state her newly found crush on Gon and her determination to crush anyone who came in her way, including Himeko whom she eyed once in a while with a knife in her hand as she could still be a potential threat to her very unlikely relationship. Nonetheless, Himeko just reminded her that she liked someone else and reassured that Gon doesn't look at her beyond a friend. Himeko spent some time talking about him and how he doesn't exactly seem to have a specific type of girl he likes; or at least that's what she thought after spending time with him. As long as you were someone with good morals, Gon would want to befriend you. The rest would pretty much be up to you to make the first move. She did mention that he didn't seem like he would particularly be interested in a relationship especially since he has some things on his mind. His priorities were set, he wanted to find Ging but before that he wanted to save Kite.

Half an hour passed with endless girl talk, gossip and everything else stereotypical girls would do at a sleepover. Bisky finished painting everyone's nails and even picky Himeko seemed to like how her manicure turned out. After all, it had been really long since someone had actually given her nails treatment, so she found it quite relaxing. Plus her hands haven't looked this pretty in a while. Bisky summoned Cookie-chan to give her a back massage while they continued talking about all kinds of things not noticing that time was going by really quickly. In the end, both Bisky and Palm put on some sort of green, hydrating face mask that was supposed to brighten up their faces. Bisky also had some hot rollers in her hair, waiting for them to do their thing. Himeko somehow manage to opt out of having to put on a face mask, but she couldn't escape from Bisky who wanted to try doing her hair. She too ended up with some hot rollers in her hair.

Their conversation was cut short as they heard the front door opening. It must have been Gon and Killua who finally returned after their fight with Knuckle, and everyone was anticipating the end results. Killua was the first one to step in, and was startled to see two green-faced women staring right back at him. "What the hell happened to your faces? For a moment I thought the Chimera ants somehow managed to find us."

"We just had a girl's night in and decided to relax for a while. Right, Kou?" But when Bisky turned to where Himeko was sat, she was no where to be found. They scanned the living room trying to find her, only to see her doing star jumps in another corner of the room facing the wall.

"777, 778, 779." She counted, trying to make it seem as if she's been doing it for a while now.

"Kou!" Bisky tried to call her. Himeko stopped and slowly turned around, acting surprised to see Killua having returned from the fight.

"Oh, I didn't see you there." She chuckled nervously. "I was busy training, so I didn't notice you coming in. How did the fight go? Where is Gon? Did you win?" Although she knew her attempts to change the topic were going to fail she still tried but she was saved by Gon who walked in carrying Knuckle on his back. "That is-"

"Today's fight didn't count!" Gon announced, before taking the unconscious Knuckle to their bedroom. Killua quietly followed, and Himeko who was curious about the outcome followed too. Knuckle seemed out cold, which meant that either Gon or Killua must have knocked him out but Gon said that the fight did not count.

"What happened?" She asked Killua, who just watched Gon tuck Knuckle in.

"He underestimated us and told Gon to punch him. Gon used his _Hatsu_ and knocked him out," Killua started to explain, "we agreed not to take his token, he didn't fight back so it wasn't a real fight."

"What an idiot."

"We couldn't just leave him there so we decided to bring him back."

"Was he alone? Was his partner there?"

"No," Killua answered. "But I'm sure he was watching us from afar. I don't think he'll come out anytime soon so Knuckle will be our only opponent for the next few days."

"I see."

"That reminds me, do you always train with those in your hair?" Killua questioned, pointing at the hot rollers in her hair in suspicion. "Don't tell me those are supposed to act as weights."

Himeko sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck, "Oopsie, I forgot to take them out." ...

Killua narrowed his eyes at her and began to pull on her ear. He started to lecture her, "I told you to train while we are gone, your Sensei won't let you come with us if you don't become strong enough!"

"Sorry, I got caught up in talking so I forgot." She grinned nervously, hoping Killua would let go of her ear and stop scolding her..

"How could you forget something so important? I was hoping that you'd at least be allowed to come and watch us fight Knuckle and Shoot, but you aren't even allowed to do that unless your Sensei approves of your abilities. He said that you should find a solution around this problem if you want to watch the fights that badly."

"Around the problem, huh?" Himeko thought out loud as she spent a brief moment thinking about something. "What if I literally find a way around it?" She began to run out through mental simulations although it seemed a little too simple to be called one of her plans. It was one of the oldest tricks in the book, but it could work if she acted it out accordingly. Maybe Bisky's tip of trying to think less and focus solely one the important aspects was actually helping. But she had to remember, if Sensei caught her she could be banned from going to NGL. She had to first decide whether it was actually worth the risk before following the plan. "It's worth a shot, you're a genius Killua!"

"I am?"

"Yeah," she nodded, "you honestly are!"

"Well, if you insist." Killua started to rub his neck in embarrassment, but when he looked back up to brag some more Himeko was already gone. She joined Bisky and asked her to take the rollers out of her hair since Bisky was taking hers out too after washing her face. She couldn't help but be fascinated when her pin straight hair turned out to be curly.

"Killua," Gon tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention, "do you want to use the shower first?"

"You should use it first, you were the one carrying Knuckle back after all."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, just don't take too long. It's really late already."

Gon took a towel and stepped inside the bathroom while Killua tried hard to remember what he was going to ask Himeko. Because Himeko ended up side tracking, Killua too ended up losing focus and completely forgot what he was going to ask her. He went to her while Bisky was carefully combing through her hair to loosen up the curls. He just stood there awkwardly, waiting for them to finish what they were doing. Bisky noticed this and looked up at him, "do you want me to do your hair too?"

"There's no need for that, and stop trying to make me forget what I was going to say."

"What do you want to say?"

Himeko proceeded to whisper something into her ear, "it's probably another lecture. Just take your time, he'll get irritated and leave."

"I heard that!" Killua yelled at what Himeko supposedly 'whispered' into Bisky's ear. He proceeded to sit down next to them, waiting for them to finish but it didn't seem like they were going to finish anytime soon. "I was wondering, if Gon and I are going to fight and get the tokens from Knuckle and Shoot what are you going to do? The fight against those two is supposed to be training itself, but you don't have anyone to fight against to test how strong you've gotten."

"You should worry about yourself first," Bisky pointed out before Killua could continue. "I've tried reasoning with her teacher, I thought sending Gon and Kou out was a much saner idea since they have the least fighting experience but her Sensei assured that she'll be find with his training."

"Natsu and Toshi have gone away to train, so I don't have anyone to train with unless Sensei expects me to fight him." Himeko added. "I won't be able to learn anything if I just end up getting beat up by him."

"You two are worrying too much," Bisky interrupted, "he seems to know what he is doing although I did doubt him when he took that big book out of the shelf."

"He did train the other three so I guess he is a good teacher. It's just a matter of me keeping up with training, that's all."

While talking, Himeko started to move her head a little which annoyed Bisky who was trying to do her hair. "Keep your head still!"

"Ah, sorry."

Bisky fiddled around with her hair a little longer until a satisfied smile appeared on her face. "Done!" She beamed proudly before taking out a hand mirror so Himeko could see her creation. She managed to put her short hair up into a half up-do, tying it up with a bow. Himeko carefully examined her reflection and gave Bisky a satisfied nod. "It looks good, right?"

"Yeah it does, if I was a guy I'd totally fall for myself now!" She shamelessly boasted while continuing to look at herself in the mirror. "But I have to go to bed soon so it's a shame. It's going to be ruined."

"That's okay, I can just do it again tomorrow."

"Won't it be a hassle for you though?"

"Not at all, I enjoyed it!" Bisky smiled. Killua tried to wait patiently for them to finish side tracking again so he could ask them a bunch of questions about training. Knuckle was the only one that challenged them so far and there was no sight of Shoot. Killua wondered whether he should just search for him and try taking the token from him since Gon decided to fight Knuckle. Before doing so he did want his teacher's opinion. However all his teacher did was fix some fly aways and take a couple of pictures of Himeko. "Pretty, right?"" She asked him, catching him completely off guard. Bisky and Himeko stared at him waiting for a response but Killua couldn't help but look like a deer caught in headlights.

"Yea- I mean no, I mean she is okay looking I guess. She looks like any other human being with two eyes, a nose, a mouth- " Killua managed to stutter out an indecisive answer before starting to ramble incoherent words trying to justify his statement, leaving the two girls dumbfounded at his useless answer.

"What kind of a lame response was that, just say yes or no!" Bisky sighed.

Killua bashfully scratched the back of his head. "Yes... I guess."

Pleased with the results Bisky took a brief glance at Himeko, trying to see how she would respond expecting a usual witty response from her. She was a little surprised to see her in a daze and decided to give her a tap on the shoulder to snap her out of it. "Kou, aren't you going to respond to that lame answer?"

"Huh?" Himeko blinked a couple of times until she completely absorbed what Bisky had just said. "Oh," she bowed her head slightly, "thank you."

Bisky mentally face palmed, _"well, that was probably one of the most awkward things I've ever had to witness."_

"Ah, that reminds me of something. Is Sensei still meditating? He should have scolded me by now for wasting an hour." Himeko determinedly tried to change to topic and looked around to see what her Sensei was up to. Sensei was still sitting in the same place as he did when Gon and Killua left. "I'll go and check up on him, yeah I'll do that!" She declared before standing up and leaving the two behind.

The two watched her leave before Bisky turned to Killua, giving him a mocking look. She then started to giggle to herself mimicking Killua's tone, "she looks like any other human being, he says."

Killua mentally cursed at himself._ "Goddamnit, now she's going to use that against me until she gets bored of it."_

"'Okay looking'," Bisky continued to laugh whole heartedly, "I've never heard anyone say that as a compliment before."

"You must have heard it at least once in your one hundred years of living," Killua pointed out before he actually realised that he had stepped on a land mine. Bisky who wasn't laughing so much anymore just glared at him giving him some time to run if he wanted to before she dealt with him.

Himeko on the other hand walked over to Sensei and waved her hand in front of his face trying to see whether he would respond. However, he didn't. _"The geezer fell asleep..." _She proceeded to sigh before shaking him by his shoulders to wake him up. After a while he woke up and looked around still half asleep. "You should go and sleep in your room, your legs will hurt if you fall asleep like this, Sensei."

"What time is it?"

She looked at the clock hanging off the wall, "it's nearly two in the morning."

"Two?" Sensei asked. "Why are you still awake at this hour?" Himeko remained speechless, trying to find the perfect excuse to lead her out of this situation. Sensei raised his tone when she didn't answer, "go to bed this instance."

"Y-yes!" Looking at the clock it was way past her bedtime and she also had to consider the fact that she has to wake up early. She marched towards the room she shared with Bisky and Palm. "Night Killua, night Bisky. I'm going ahead!"

Bisky soon joined her leaving Killua behind who just waited for Gon to come out of the shower so he could use it. He stared off into the distance realising that he completely forgot to ask Bisky his question again thanks to them changing the topic. There was no use thinking about it now, he just had to ask her tomorrow. Once Gon was out and drying his hair, Killua went into the shower. By the time he returned, everyone except for Gon had already gone to bed. They soon switched their lights off and went to sleep, preparing for the long day ahead of them.

...

The next morning, Himeko as per usual woke up before everyone else and went out for a morning jog with heavier ankle and wrist weights. When she returned, she joined everyone for breakfast. She decided to keep the weights on throughout the day just like they did back at the Zoldyck estate when Zeboro trained them. Of course Knuckle who was brought home by Gon and Killua the previous night also joined them for breakfast, leaving Palm lurking in the kitchen so she could have a chance to strike when he wasn't looking.

Knuckle used the opportunity to fully introduce himself and he turned out not to be such a bad guy after all. Much different from his teacher, that's for sure. Although he didn't mention much about Shoot, he did say that he would use every opportunity he can get to fight Gon fair and square until the end of the month. He did warn Gon that he will not go easy on him just because he was a child to which Gon happily agreed. Knuckle soon left and Bisky started training the boys while Himeko waited for Sensei to bring that big ass Atlas to crush her head with, but surprisingly he didn't.

"Sensei, did you misplace the book?" Himeko asked curiously. "I'm sure you put it back in the shelf yesterday."

"We will be doing something different today," he announced, "something that fits with your age range."

_"Excuse me?"_

Despite the offended look on Himeko's face, Sensei started to complain about the children of the twenty-first century. "All you children do these days is stare at your little technological devices. When I was your age I played outside in the wild which is why I'm still healthy now."

"I don't mean to rain on your parade, but I hardly use my phone at the dojo anyway. It's not like you let us use them in the first place."

"That is why we are going to play a game called tag, I'm not sure whether you children still play such games."

"Sensei, I know what tag is." She pointed out before she let him continue.

Sensei continued laying out the rules for her. "The rules are straightforward. I will begin counting and you will have to run away as far as possible and hide. You can hide anywhere in the town and the outskirts of town in the forests and you have to manage to not get caught. If you do get caught, we will swap over and you would have to find me. Of course, you will only be able to use _Nen_ and any _Nen_ techniques you've learnt so far to play whether it be _Ten, Ren, Hatsu, Zetsu_ or any of the advanced techniques. Use of the drug's abilities is forbidden even if it's by accident."

"All the _Nen_ techniques I know?"

"That's right, and if you have to hit me with that space disk of yours to keep me from catching you, then do that by all means."

_"It's called an Aerodisk, not a Space disk..."_

"If you are ready I will start counting up to one hundred."

Himeko nodded reluctantly and Sensei started to count. Thus, their extreme game of tag began.

* * *

**A/n-** I guess the next chapter should be fun to write lol. Also sorry for the lame 'girl talk' but honestly speaking, I don't know what normal girls usually talk about.

**Review Corner:**

**SilverDewDrop-** I get lazy sometimes so I guess I write when I'm actually bothered to write. That and I start school again in September so I guess I want to write as much as I can before that :)

**SlightlyYandereMelissa-** I pretty much suck at writing fluff. I don't know why, I guess I'm just a really non-romantic creature... did I really just call myself a creature xD Worry not though, I'm doing my research by reading shoujo manga and watching k-dramas. They aren't exactly helping but I guess it's better than nothing. I guess the 2 lines of fluff in this chapter can be included... or maybe not... well, I tried.

**Queechi-** I hope you won that match. If not then you can always try again next year. Wow, I suck at comforting people... And that's actually a pretty cool plot twist although that's the smartest Natsume would ever be. Just kidding, don't judge a book by it's cover (Pun was not intended).

**Guest-** Yeah, sorry I usually don't stick to a timetable. I might make one once school starts again where I can try and update every fridays but knowing me I'd probably fail after 3 weeks. Once again sorry for any inconveniences caused with you having to check every two days. And well, I hope you liked the chapter :D


	48. Tag

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 48**

_Tag_  
_..._

Sensei started to count, and time was starting to tick. If he were to count to one hundred, that would give her around one and a half minutes to run; depending on how fast he was counting of course. The thought of time starting to pass quickly was nerve wrecking, and she was trying to think of a plan on the spot. No, that wasn't going to work. By the time she thought of a full fledged plan, Sensei would have already finished counting. She looked around and opened a nearby window in the living room. Everyone who was watching had already guessed what she was going to do next.

"Kou!" Gon shouted, trying to get her attention. At that moment nothing seemed to fully absorb into her brain though.

Killua also began to warn her before she jumped, "we are on the second floor," he reminded her.

"Doesn't matter," Himeko replied to them, "we aren't that high up, I jumped from higher heights before." Without further hesitation, she jumped out of the window, onto the busy street below. The area had a few shops and markets nearby, so it wasn't surprising that there were quite a lot of people around. A girl jumping out of the second floor of a building certainly caught the attention of most of them.

Bisky sat there as per usual with a magazine in her hands, dumbfounded by what Himeko had just done. _"That idiot, she's going to garner a lot of attention to herself."_

It was too late though, people were already staring at her and all she could do was let out a nervous chuckle before she realised what she had just done, _"oops, I should have thought that one through..."_ She was quiet so a few adults were starting to worry whether she was, fine and why she jumped out of the window in the first place.

"Did you see that?" A bypassing man asked his partner, "she jumped from the second floor."

"Is she hurt anywhere? Someone should call the ambulance."

"Do you think something happened on the second floor? Maybe should contact the police while we are at it."

People were starting to whisper amongst themselves, wondering whether something was going on over on the second floor, or whether she accidentally fell from the second floor.

"And that ladies and gents was Himeko Inoue; rising star in acrobatics," she finished her so called performance with a big bow. There was a sense of relief on the crowd's faces once she had let them know that she wasn't hurt. It was actually the opposite, the crowd actually started applauding.

"So it was all a performance."

"I have to admit though, it did scare me."

She let out a sigh in relief as the crowd seemed to have bought her story. Before anyone could start asking her any more questions, she proceeded to move along, having to think of a plan while running. It was a lot harder than she thought though. At least she somewhat knew how to get around thanks to the jogging she had been doing for the past two days, but that was no where near enough information to get her around for now. Sensei wasn't just a normal _Nen_ user; he was a _Nen_ master. Being from a long line of _Nen_ masters, he had been trained by experts from a young age, and he had also managed to take over the dojo. He was strong, so simply hiding and hoping for the best wouldn't work. She had to focus.

_"Ten, Ren, Zetsu and Hatsu are given. I know them all and for now I should use Zetsu," _she thought. _"Gyo, In, En, Shu, Ken, Ko, Ryu are the advance techniques and I can properly use Gyo, Shu, Ken, Ko and Ryu. I don't have any weapons on me so Shu is useless, while Ko and Ryu I still can't use properly. I also have to remember that Sensei can use all of them including En so even if I use Zetsu, he should be able to find me with ease if I'm within his range."_

Himeko had managed to summaries her own abilities at that moment. She didn't have a weapon, and because she trained more using a katana than actual hand to hand combat, she was at a disadvantage without it. What made things worse was Sensei's _En_. She was a reasonable distance away from the apartment, but she knew that Sensei could easily track her down unless she found a way around this problem.

_"En, En,"_ she began to recall what she learnt, _"an advanced application of Ten and Ren, extending an individuals aura further than normal into a circular shape. The individual can sense any movement within the circle, and can also sense anything moving in and out of the circle."_

What she had just recalled was the close to the definition given to her when she learnt the advanced techniques. Only a few words differed, but otherwise it was all perfect. Too bad she only knew the book definition for all of these and didn't actually know how to use some of them or even apply them to real life. It always reminded her of what Toshiro called her when she was able to perfectly recall a textbook definition but didn't know how to actually do it.

_"What are you, a human photocopier?"_ He would always mock her. _"What's the point of copying and pasting everything you learn if you don't even properly know the contents of it?"_

_"Damn, how does he manage to piss me off while being miles away from me?" _Slightly offended by Toshiro's voice constantly repeating those words inside her head, she decided to slow down and eventually stopped running.

"Think!" She told herself sternly. "En, circle, can sense anything within the circle," she highlighted the three most important points before she continued thinking. _"Anything within the circle, huh? They can feel the shape and movement of anything that's inside the circle, anything and everything. Everything including a very large crowd of shoppers."_

She briefly looked around the area and asked the closest by passer for directions to the busiest shopping district in the area. Yes, she knew that Sensei might still be able to distinguish her aura from everyone else in a crowd, but it would give her some time to think. Scanning a crowd for the right person was a lot harder and more time consuming than keeping track of them in an unpopulated area of town. Even if it were for a couple of minutes, she had to use the opportunity. She couldn't stop Sensei even if she tried, but she could buy time which was exactly what she was after right now.

After following the directions, she ended up at the busiest area in town with at least one hundred people shopping. Before she left for the shopping district though, she stopped using Zetsu and tried to mask her true strength. _Nen_ users that hide in a crowd using _Zetsu_ could stick out like a sore thumb, especially to someone using _En_. Masking her true level of strength and trying to match it to a normal, non-_Nen_ user still wouldn't stop Sensei, but it would buy more time to think things through a little.

Himeko aimlessly walked around the area, hoping Sensei would stop trying to keep track of her exact location. With some emergency cash she found in her pocket, she bought a small notebook and pen to collect her thoughts together. She wouldn't be able to resort to this in an actual fight if it was back in NGL, but hey, no one said anything about using your location and it's resources to it's fullest. Bisky and Sensei were right about a couple of things, in a state of panic she couldn't think straight and collect coherent thoughts. She had to find a better way to focus on the important aspects in a fight, but currently she had no time to think of a way to do so. She opened up the notebook and started to collect her strength and weaknesses.

She was more skilled in using the katana compared to hand to hand combat, limited _En_ that doesn't even reach a five metre distance, a need to be in an open space to be able to use her _Hatsu _without hurting anyone around her, ban on using the enhanced abilities given by the drug, weights on her ankles and wrists that acted as a handicap, required 'time out' to think properly and come up with a plan; these were some of her weaknesses she could think of from the top of her head.

Very little strengths- Has gotten training for almost every _Nen_ technique and knows the basic concepts of all of them, good _Ten_, _Ren_ and has confidence in her _Zetsu_ as she used it to trail the Phantom Troupe before, cautious of her surroundings when under stress which however is the sole reason she can't focus as much on thinking, but if she does have a good chance to come up with a plan, it's very likely to work.

Based on the list, she could work on her judgment and quick thinking skills during this challenge as well as enhancing her natural strength by wearing the weights and not using the drug. In a way, it could help her improve some on her weaknesses as this activity was still considered training. However, she couldn't do anything about not having a weapon or an open space to use her _Hatsu_. Either way, this exercise mainly focused on hiding and staying hidden, so fighting was only needed if she were to protect herself from an attack or if she needed to attack to keep Sensei away.

Speaking of Sensei, it reminded her of little she knew about Sensei's actual abilities. She didn't know what type of _Nen_ he possessed and neither did she ever witness him using his _Hatsu_. Sensei meditated every day, so his _Ten_ should be very good. She already had a taste of his _Ren_ ability, a blood lust that resembled the one of Hisoka, Killua's brother Illumi and some of the Phantom Troupe members. Sensei will use _Zetsu_ to prevent her from being able to sense his presence, and she couldn't use _En_ to track him down either. She had never seen Sensei carry any weapons around let alone use them, but considering the fact that he taught Natsume how to use weapons, it was quite obvious that he was an expert at that too. In other words, he was a formidable opponent, the strongest person she would have to face thus far. The fact that she hardly knew anything about him scared her a little, but it was perfect practice for her. Like Gon said a few days back, they wouldn't be able to enter NGL knowing every ants' abilities. They would only be able to figure them out on the spot and find a way to deal with them. Whether they were stronger than her or weaker, she wouldn't know either. In this case she knew that Sensei was a lot stronger than her unless he purposely went easy on her which she didn't want.

It was perfect hunt, where she was the prey and Sensei was the predator. A cat and mouse game where the mouse has to use it's wits and resources to get as far away as possible. But thinking of cats only reminded her of something, or someone in particular. The hairs on her arms stood up as she remembered Neferpitou's terrifying eyes staring back at her. Her _Ren_ could have been able to crush her completely both physically and mentally if Kite didn't allow them to flee. But that just reminded her of how she wanted to at least be able to get a strong enough _Ten_ to protect her from that _Ren._

She finally came to grips with herself after digging her nails into her arm, _"that was all the information I could gather off the top of my head, I should get moving."_ She didn't have a clue on how far Sensei's _En_ could reach. If Kite, who was most likely in his mid to late twenties was able to extend his to around forty five metres, possibly even fifty, she could safely assume that Sensei could extend his to at least fifty, if not, a lot more. After all, he grew up in the dojo that was passed down to him, so he was most likely trained from a very young age. He was most likely in his mid to late eighties, or could even be in his nineties.

_"One hundred,"_ she randomly estimated from the top of her head. _"If it's less, then I'm a little safe, if it's more, then I'm screwed. But I'm screwed either way since I don't know where the one hundred metres would start. I'm at least five hundred metres away from the apartment,"_ she proceeded to look at a nearby clock by some flowerbeds, _"but it's been nearly six minutes since I started running. Sensei must have started by now."_

She continued her journey through the crowded shopping district, trying to stay alert for any possible signs of an attack. Not just that, there were quite a lot of things running through her head, and the fact that Sensei could be anywhere wasn't the only thing. Her fighting style seemed somehow weak, she couldn't possibly go against the ants like this. But to improve, she at least needed a starting point which she didn't have in this case. There were so many gaps in her abilities that she needed to fill up after all.

_"Didn't Toshi say something about Nen users being able to develop an ability outside their natural Nen type?" _Himeko asked herself. It was one of the first things Toshiro taught her about _Nen_, giving her that long winded talk about _Nen_ right at the beginning before he started training her. _"It won't be as efficient as my transmutation ability, but I can still develop the skill if I work hard enough."_

However, she then remembered something important; the hexagon with all six Nen types. Your primary _Nen_ type has one hundred percent efficiency, while the _Nen_ types adjacent to your own type would only be eighty percent effective. The one furthest away from you primary _Nen_ type would only be forty percent efficient. As Himeko was a transmuter, she would have the most luck learning techniques involving enhancement and conjuration.

_"Why is it me that always thinks of the lamest, most useless attacks ever,"_ she asked herself. The _Wind Blast_ was a very basic attack, one that she actually used to improve her control over her wind _Hatsu_. _Aerodisk_ was a lot more efficient in getting it's work done, and it also took her a long time to develop. But that type of attack only works if it's used from a long distance. _Wind Blast_ isn't as useful for inflicting actual pain, it's better used to hold the enemy back for a while. If she wanted to go anywhere with this all, she needed to think strategically. She was sorted to deal with opponents who were further away from her, but unless she carries a katana around she wasn't covered to fight opponents from a close range. Martial arts was always an option, but there were no real techniques she had. _"If it's a weapon, then maybe conjuration? But will Sensei teach me if I ask him, or do I have to figure out a way to learn it myself?"_

There was no guarantee that Sensei was actually going to help her develop new _Nen_ techniques. Those things were usually left to her to figure out on her own. Sensei rather seemed to be helping her improve her basics, which in turn did help her with her _Hatsu_, but that wasn't the point here. Killua was a transmuter like her, so unless she asked him for advice on transmutation that wouldn't work. Bisky too was a transmuter, but she did manage to master manipulation and emission. Gon was an enhancer, but according to Toshiro, enhancers didn't even need special techniques to fight as their _Nen_ type was the simplest to work with out of all six. The only natural conjurers she could think of were Natsume, who was away training, and Kurapika whom she hasn't heard from since the events in Yorkshin.

_"Would Kurapika even answer his phone?" _she wondered, staring at her phone's screen. Kurapika was strong enough to take on Uvo, who was physically the strongest in the Phantom Troupe. However, most of his strength was fuelled by his hatred for the Spiders and the goal to wipe them off the face of the earth. He used 'Vows and Limitations' to create his _Hatsu_, and since he offered to take his own life if he were to ever break his contract, his ability was strengthened. It was something Himeko would be too afraid to do; offering her life in exchange that is. But that was how Kurapika became so strong in such a short time, and although she wasn't advised to to take the risk, she was still slightly curious about how it all worked. Asking wouldn't hurt anyone, would it now? She scrolled through the list of contacts before finding Kurapika's name.

The phone started ringing, and kept going until it stopped. Himeko got her hopes up, thinking Kurapika actually picked up, but instead it was forwarded to his voicemail, "the person you've called is currently unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone, or try again later." Hearing the automated voicemail, Himeko wondered whether she should just cut the phone or leave a message, hoping he would call back or something. But then she questioned herself whether Kurapika would actually call back even if she left a message. She was in a daze, holding the phone closely by her ear.

**_Beep_**

The tone startled her, but it also indicated that the voicemail was now recording. She didn't know whether she should talk or not, after all, she didn't want to sound like a complete idiot. "Ah, is this recording? Oh, err, umm... hey Kurapika, it's Kou!" Her own introduction made her cringe in utter embarrassment, _"well, no shit Himeko, who else would be calling from your phone. Why do I end up sounding like a total retard when I want to sound like one of those cute, happy-go-lucky girls?" _Nonetheless, Himeko took a deep breath of air to calm herself down and raise her confidence back up. She cleared her throat before deciding to let random words escape her mouth again, "I'm sorry I called, you must really be busy with work. I called because- " Himeko took a brief moment to think. She called to ask him about a technique he advised them not to use, would he really be willing to tell her about it? It didn't take long for her shoulders to drop down again, "um, never mind. It wasn't too important anyway. I hope you're not overworking yourself again. Well, take care!"

Not having anything else left to say, Himeko ended the call. Somehow, she was quite relieved that it was finally over. Instead of continuing to spout more nonsense and embarrassing herself further, she cut the call completely. But not having heard one word from Kurapika for so long worried her. At least Leorio somehow still tried to keep in touch with everyone, but Kurapika had gone quiet for so long now. It was starting to worry her a lot, especially knowing how he rushes into anything related to the Phantom Troupe. She would have rather wished that he picked up, so at least knowing that he was alright would have set her mind at peace. It wouldn't have mattered if she stuttered out some embarrassing things in that case.

She sighed, _"what am I thinking, this is Kurapika we are talking about. Of course he'll be fine!" _She stared at the phone in her shaking hands, trying to believe the lie she was trying to tell herself.

There wasn't anything left for her to do now, all she could do was try and ask the other conjurer she knew. She scrolled to Natsume's name and called him. She didn't know whether Natsume was willing to share information with her either, but at least it was worth a try. It took him quite a while to answer, but he eventually did.

"Hello, Natsume speaking~," he beamed upon picking up the call. "How can I help Koucchi today~?"

Himeko was starting to regret calling this idiot, "you can start by not making up these weird nicknames for me."

"What's up? Are you training well? Sensei's training you, right?"

"Yeah, he decided to train me. We are in the middle of playing _tag,"_ she informed him in the most unenthusiastic voice possible.

"Sensei's good at that, is it really smart of you to talk to me with Sensei on your back?"

"I'm in a busy shopping district, it will take him a while to find me," she explained, "besides, I phoned to ask you something about training."

"It must be pretty important considering you are asking me and not Sensei. What is it?"

"It's about conjuration. I'm a transmuter, so I have a good chance to develop a technique with conjuration, right? After going to NGL I've realised that I can't just take a katana around anywhere, in some situations it just acts as dead weight. I need to find a way to fight opponents from a closer range and I thought I could do it using conjuration."

"Slow down there," Natsume interrupted her, "do you have any idea on how difficult it is to do something like that? You just started learning _Nen_, and even though I'm a conjurer, it took me months to master conjuring and dispelling items. You don't want to learn a new ability for yourself in the long term, you are just desperate to win against the ants. You have less than a month left, do you think you'll be able to learn it and master it within a few weeks?"

"I can try!"

"It's a waste of time, don't learn go and learn something half assed. _Nen_ requires patience and time."

"I can still try, I know I can do it! Kurapika started learning _Nen_ the same time I started, yet he managed to take down one of the Phantom Troupe members after just four months of training."

When she started to speak of Kurapika, Natsume somehow connected the dots together. "I'm not going to tell you about 'Vows and Limitations', that's out of the question!"

"Why not?" She asked in desperation, "I'm not going to misuse it, I simply want to know about it. There is no way I'm going to do something absurd as offering my life to become stronger."

"That's enough, Himeko!" Natsume started yelling at her in anger, "if you phoned to find out about that, the conversation ends right here. If you have anything else to ask, go on, otherwise don't waste my time with your nonsense." There was an awkward silence on either side of the line. This was the first time Natsume ever raised his voice at her, so that alone shut her up for good. Natsume too was surprised that he had to shout at the student he never raised his voice at, so he was just waiting for a response from her, hoping he hadn't intimidated her too much. Himeko gulped, pushing down what felt like a huge lump stuck in her throat, before she started talking again.

"Is Toshi doing well?"

"I have no idea, we aren't training together. We decided to train in different locations so we don't hold each other back. Knowing him, he'll be fine," he reassured her with confidence, "speaking of training, are you keeping up with Sensei? He can go overboard a lot. I remember he used to make me run around the forest and mountains with those heavy weights daily."

"I guess I'm trying to keep up. He makes me run around town with those weights in the mornings too."

"Man, that brings back memories!" Natsume sighed, reminiscing about his time when he first joined the dojo and was trained by Sensei. "He made us all train separately. He works hard to create a training schedule to suit each individual, so make sure to use this training period wisely. Also, be careful of those two assassins you have to fight. They're quite strong!"

"You met them?"

"Yeah, Toshi and I did before we left town. That reminds me, Toshi and I aren't on your teams. We'll only be able to go back to NGL if you three lose against Shoot and Knuckle."

"Wait, what?!" Himeko cut in. "Does that mean we won't fight together? You fucking traitors!"

"We can't oppose the Chairman," he explained, "if we didn't agree with him, he told us to just quit and go back home. That aside, shouldn't you be training right now?"

"That's right!"

"Call again when you miss me," Natsume beamed again in his usual, cheery voice, "bye, Koucchi~!"

"Just put the phone down, will you!"

Natsume let out an amused chuckle at her annoyed voice, before cutting the call._ 'Don't waste my time with your nonsense,' _was what he told her. She expected that kind of answer from Toshiro, maybe even Haruko but she never expected Natsume to say something like that. He looked like a reckless person himself, so it almost seemed a little contradicting. In a way, it didn't go as well as she expected. But if Natsume reacted like this, she didn't want to know how Kurapika would have reacted.

_"I'm sure the Hunter website would have information about it, but they'll charge me money. I don't have much money on hand either. What am I supposed to do now?" _Yet again, she was thinking too much about it. She wanted to consider every possibility before starting to train on her own. _Vows and Limitations_ sounded like a scary concept, especially since you can take the concept to the extreme, but it was pretty much the only way to become stronger in a short amount of time. Natsume was right, she didn't want a long term power. She simply wanted something that could at least get her through NGL alive; something that could keep her from relying on others. It didn't matter if the power disappeared right after she returned alive from the fight, she wanted something that would help her stay alive through it. She wasn't as desperate as Kurapika to put her life on the line with it, and she was smart enough not to misuse it either. As stupid as it sounded, she expected the answer to fall from the sky. However, she knew nothing was going to fall from anywhere.

Just then, the sound of her phone ringing startled her.

_"For goodness sake, which fucking moron is calling me this time?" _She cursed before looking at the screen. She started to panic when she saw the caller ID,_ "I take that back, it's Kurapika. I'm sorry for calling you fucking moron, Kurapika!" _Himeko then unconsciously fixed her hair and cleared her throat before picking up the phone call, "Hello, Himeko speaking!" She then face-palmed, repeating her own, cringeworthy introduction inside her head, _"why do you have to be so embarrassing, Himeko?"_

"It's Kurapika, I got your message," he told her, "was there something you wanted to ask?" The fact that Kurapika actually phoned back was astonishing itself, now he was asking whether she needed help. Himeko couldn't ask for anything else, she was more than happy with just that. It felt as if she was on cloud nine. "Kou?"

"Ah, umm, actually I'm involved in a mission or at least I'm preparing to go on one soon," she started off explaining, "I'm training my _Nen, _so I was hoping you could tell me about conjuration."

Himeko quietly waited for Kurapika's response from the other side of the line, but in the end all she got from him was a loud sigh. It was a mixture of annoyance and frustration; but she couldn't tell whether he was annoyed at her or at himself. Although she somewhat expected him to respond this way, it still bugged her a little and made her wonder whether she was irritating him with a question to which she already knew the answer. The same question was asked by Gon back in September of last year, and she expected the exact same response from him this time around too. He was desperate to become strong enough to face the Phantom Troupe in a short amount of time, but the fact that he had to resort to the method that he used seemed to still irk him a little.

"I'm not the right person to ask for advice," he replied. It was the same answer he gave last year, and hearing that Gon, Killua and Himeko gave up asking him from training advice. But Himeko didn't want to give up this time around, she wanted to collect all the information she possibly could. She needed to find a way to improve within a month; Netero's set time; and she also needed something that could potentially save her and everyone around her when there's no other hope left. All Natsume did was put her down, trying to tell her to just keep improving her basics and work on the _Hatsu_ she had already developed. He told her to just give up before even trying and wasting her time doing so. He wasn't even on the same team as her, so maybe he didn't think that Gon and Killua were strong enough to beat Knuckle and Shoot. Maybe Natsume just assumed that it didn't matter whether Himeko was strong enough to face the ants of now since she wasn't going to enter NGL in the first place. But Himeko knew how much those two were training, and she saw how much Bisky had been putting them through. Killua was a fast learner, while Gon could get anything done with just his determination alone. In the end, there was still a good chance of those two winning against Morel's disciples and that meant that there was still a good chance for her to get through to NGL with those two.

"It doesn't matter, Kurapika! I want all the information I can get, whether it's useful or not." She voice sounded almost desperate to get every pieces of information out of Kurapika.

"It's something you shouldn't know about, Kou," he tried to convince her in his usual calm tone, "there is no point in you knowing about it."

"It still doesn't matter, I want to know about it." Not even Kurapika could change her mind at this point, if not through him, she would have just used the Hunter website instead even if it's a paid service. "There are so many things about _Nen_ I don't know about, but I want to know more than I already do, so please tell me."

The fact that she wasn't going to give in any time soon was pretty obvious by now. In contrast to her teacher Natsume, Kurapika couldn't shout at her and tell her to stop talking about it already. He thought about it in silence, leaving Himeko hoping for some good results. Eventually, he gave in. "You have to promise me not to do something reckless with it."

A smile slowly appeared on her face, before she let out a sound agreeing to his terms, "I promise that I won't use it like you did!"

"The technique I used is called 'Vows and Limitations', and it's a way of strengthening your abilities based on your goals and desires but restricting certain elements. Depending on how strict your Vows, or Contracts are, your abilities will increase in strength. The more meaning your goal and Vow has would also contribute to your overall strength. For example, my chain jail can only be used on the members of the Phantom Troupe, therefore it's quite a strong ability I possess. In the end, it's all up to the individual," Kurapika surprisingly explained everything in depth. So far everything sounded quite good, but for everything there has to be something weighing the advantages down. This was no different. After all, there was a reason why Natsume forbade her from even finding out about this technique. "However, you can add a further limitation, or punishment to strengthen yourself further. Of course adding a punishment is optional, but you won't know what you will lose if you break the contract. Depending on the ability you create, it could cost you that specific ability, or even your life. By adding a punishment, this however won't happen. Whatever you decide will happen if you break the chosen contract, and the stricter the punishment, the stronger you will get in return. That is why I offered my life if I were to ever break the contract."

It bothered her how casually Kurapika was talking about putting his own life at risk. She knew that Kurapika wouldn't want to die before he killed the Phantom Troupe all together, but he put himself at such a big risk. He was reckless when it came to fighting the Troupe and that alone worried her; especially now that Kurapika was all alone. He wasn't the type to openly ask people for help unless they somehow found a way to make him accept their help; Gon was virtually the only person she knew who could make him do that.

"So you restrict yourself by making a contract by saying things like 'I will only use this ability on such and such days' or 'I will only use it on a specific group of people', and if you break the contract you can either punish yourself or get surprised. The stricter you are the stronger you'll get," Himeko tried to repeat whatever Kurapika had just said in the past couple of minutes in her own simple words.

"That's right!"

"Thank you so much, I think I understand it all better now," Himeko chuckled trying to lighten up the serious atmosphere.

"I have to get back to work now. Be careful on your mission!"

Himeko stopped him before he could cut the call on her, "one second." Himeko listened closely, trying to see whether it was already too late and he cut the call on her, but there was silence on the other side of the line. Kurapika was most likely waiting for her to say something. "Thank you for calling me back, it really made me happy!"

To be honest, she was a lot happier to talk to him than to get actual information out of him. It's been half a year since she had seen him back at Yorkshin, and the fact that he didn't keep in touch with anyone worried her slightly. The fact that he sounded well put her mind at rest, but at the same time she had to try and hold back her tears. It felt like a huge weight has been lifted of her shoulders now.

"It's alright, my colleagues told me to step out and call you back when I received a call from you."

He called her back because his colleagues told him to check up on her, not on his own accord. She knew that Kurapika wouldn't say anything to intentionally hurt her feelings, but he still did it unintentionally. "Well, it was nice talking to you again. Make sure to keep in touch with us, Leorio was also quite worried about you."

"Alright, I'll keep that in mind."

"Bye now!"

As soon as they said their goodbyes, Kurapika put the phone down. Himeko was still holding the phone next to her ear, hoping Kurapika would ask how she was doing before cutting the phone call, or how everyone else was doing, but there was nothing like that. In the end, she also quietly ended the call and stared at the now completely black phone screen with a hint of disappointment in her eyes. After all, that's how much she liked him, but now they just sounded like complete strangers. Then she also felt some sort of guilt for lying to him. It wasn't a complete lie, yet she wasn't honest with him either. What she actually meant by 'I won't use it like you did' was 'I won't go to the same extremes as you'. _"Sorry Kurapika, I lied," _she apologised, staring at the fingers she kept crossed during the whole conversation.

Regardless of what was going to happen, or what was going on with Kurapika, she had to think about all those things later. She wasted enough time as it is. She was in the middle of training, and she couldn't stay where she was forever. As she continued to walk through the path with shops on either side, she suddenly decided to look up, and ended up making eye contact with a woman in her late twenties. The woman gave her the biggest, most welcoming smile.

_"Oh crap, that's a sales assistant,"_ Himeko thought,_ "don't make eye contact, don't make eye contact!"_

But before she could make a complete U-turn and walk away from the place, the sales assistant spoke up, "excuse me miss, would you like me to show you our latest items?"

She was working at an expensive looking jewellery store, but the items that were on display were actually quite cute. So cute that even Himeko who doesn't care for accessories turned her head to look at them twice. The shop was painted in a lot of pastel colours, and the whole store was bright, lighthearted and girly.

"Sorry, but I have to go now..." But before Himeko could walk away, the sales assistant pulled her inside. She dragged Himeko to one of the newer items in store; a rose gold bracelet. The fact that a simple bracelet was on display by itself must have meant that it was either very expensive, very popular or brand new; maybe even all three. Nonetheless, the sales assistant started talking about the item, regardless of whether Himeko seemed interested or not.

"Isn't it just cute, it's our latest item we got in stock last week. It's quite popular and it's selling pretty quickly."

_"If it's selling out pretty quickly, why did you drag me inside just to show me it?" _Himeko did decide to look at the bracelet, and it confused her a little. Sure, the colour of it was quite cute; rose gold was pretty trendy after all. But it was just a normal looking chain bracelet. There was nothing special about it; nothing special for it to be this popular.

"It's called a _charm bracelet_," the sales assistant explained, "you can buy little charms and attach them to the chain. The charms usually represent who you are, for example, what is your star sign?"

"Sagittarius," Himeko answered.

"In that case," the sales assistant turned over to one of the shelves and pointed at one of the upper ones, "I'm not sure whether you can see them from here, but we have little charms in the shape of the archer for Sagittarius. Of course we have charms in the shape of a snowflake for anyone who's born in winter too. You can personalise your bracelet to represent you, isn't that amazing?"

"I guess it is a cute idea," Himeko nodded halfheartedly. She knew where this was going to go, the sales assistant would ask her to buy the bracelet along with some charms, but she clearly wasn't interested. The idea of the bracelet did remind her of an individual's _Nen_ though, with the actual chain being the individual and the little charms being the abilities they possess.

"It's 120,000 Jenny (around 1,000 USD), would you like to buy it?"

_"Does it really look like I carry that much money around... I'm like, what? Thirteen?" _Himeko raised her brow, before she looked up at the sales assistant and smiled. "I don't have much on me, but I'll definitely ask my daddy to buy me one!"

"Really?"

"Yep," Himeko nodded, before she continued to lie in her high pitched voice, "he's at work now, but I'll ask him when he gets back."

"We are open until eight o'clock."

"Okay, I'll be back then."

The sales assistant waved her off, and somehow Himeko managed to escape using her act. She obviously wasn't going to go back to buy herself some overpriced piece of jewellery that was way more than she could afford, neither was she going to ask anyone to buy it for her; let alone her dad who would be busy watching over her and her brother from up there. However, the concept of the bracelet was quite interesting and made her think.

_"I have so much to do this month, it seems nearly impossible to do everything I want to do,"_ Himeko thought,_ "not only is Sensei training me daily, I would also have to find a way to sneak out to see Gon and Killua fight and now I want to improve my Nen by myself too. Maybe Bisky was right, I am putting way too much on my plate." _The thought of all that was overwhelming. The number of hours she'd have to spend daily on just training was getting dangerously close to being a full twenty four hours a day, but in a way she tried to tell herself that it was only for a couple more weeks. Hard work always pays off, and if she managed to achieve all her goals she won't be in anyone's way and neither would she need anyone's help during battle.

While walking in the midst of the crowd, Himeko suddenly felt a pair of eyes on her. She instantly snapped out of her thoughts, looked around and checked who it could have been from. However, there was no one suspicious around. It definitely wasn't her brain playing tricks on her though, someone was watching her and that someone was possibly Sensei.

_"Strange,"_ she thought. She felt his presence for just a split second, but now it was completely gone. But that was odd, Sensei wasn't an amateur at using _Zetsu,_ so he wouldn't have slipped like that. Heck, even she didn't make those kind of mistakes anymore. Unless he intentionally slipped up to let her know that he was there. In that case, Himeko knew what was he was trying to do.

He was trying to lure her away from that crowded place.

* * *

**A/n-** This chapter took a little long to write and it's pretty much long overdue, but I wanted to get it done during the weekend. It was hard to find a reason for Kurapika to call her back, so I had a mini author's block too XD

Also, sorry if this chapter bored you. The next one or two chapters will be solely focusing on Himeko's training, so they'll be OC-centric (but then again, the whole fic is pretty much OC centric). I do want to show a transition for her to become stronger over time and how she chooses to do it. I can assure you that a lot of the future chapters will make up for the lack of character interactions ;) I have some funny ideas in store (yes, I laugh at my own jokes. I know, I'm lame!). If you want me to come up with omakes until then to make up for the lack of character interactions, do let me know!

**Review Corner -**

**SlightlyYandereMelissa-** Thank you for being satisfied with my lacking fluff writing skills. And K-dramas are filled with excitement and thrill for the first few episodes, and the other episodes filled with disappointment. Just kidding, they are just (really cheesy) korean dramas!

**Queechi-** Thanks for making a girl-girl bonding session sound perverted. I'm probably going to remember this whenever I write future chapters where they wash each other's backs. On a side note, I guess your team must have done well considering the fact that you went into overtime. Well done, and I hope the other game went well too.

Plot plot twist: Natsume is actually taking part in the hide and seek/tag game and is winning because he is hiding in the library still disguised as a book. I'm so tempted to include this in the actual plot now although it's totally going to contradict the whole 'Natsume and Toshiro have gone separate ways to train for the month' thing.

**SilverDewDrop-** Yeah, it was hard to think of a girl talk. All my friends and I talk about are random things... and periods xD I'm glad that the chapter made you laugh!

**Nyaggerz-** Hey, thanks for leaving a review! First of all, please take care when fainting, it's not a pleasant experience XD

Honestly, I'm just awkward at writing about romantic relationships, but then again I assume Killua would be extremely awkward if he had a crush on someone and Kurapika would pretty much remain asexual until he manages to get revenge for his clan. So yeah, that's why the romance is very slow paced. But Himeko is also quite awkward too when it comes to romance, and since she's quite young I don't want to add too much until they're a little older. I do agree with you, I know that my OC centric chapters are quite confusing, but I managed to find a beta to help me out and point me in the right direction to make improvements in my edited chapters. She's got exams right now, so once she's done with them she'll sit down and read through everything. And yep, Himeko does have a lot to do, but it's all part of her being naive about certain things. Finding her brother is one thing, but reuniting the two clans that don't get along is another. Those are just a few problems she has to face and go through to understand how hard everything in life is. (I sound like a sadist for making her go through so much lol)

Thank you for loving my fic, and good luck to you too in school (I'm assuming that you've started already, if you still attend school that is). I won't let you cry and sob in your own goo xD

**Haine-** It feels good to hear from you again after such a long time! I didn't know that there was an app for fanfictions! Technology is so advance these days, and gosh I feel so old after saying that!

You must be my long lost twin then if you have the same problem writing fluffy scenes. When I write them, I feel so... embarrassed xD Especially while writing the 5 fluff scenes to be included in future chapters (so I don't forget about them). I remember you saying that you were 16 too once! Are you perhaps left handed too, because if you are then I'd be very creeped out.

**JokeLover123-** I love playing tag, I still played it during lunch time in High school with friends (and the lower years wondered what was wrong with us lol). I don't actually know what Killua wanted to ask either. It was training related, but with Bisky and Himeko talking all the time and side tracking he forgot so I didn't bother thinking of a real reason. Thanks for taking your time and leaving a review, I highly appreciate it and I hope you liked the update :D

**Guest-** Thanks for being patient with me, I highly appreciate it. I have free periods at school now, so I usually try and do most of my homework then but psychology essays take really long to write. I'll try and start the next chapter sometime this week :)

**Guest 2-** Thank you, and I wish you good luck with school too :)


	49. Shadow's Game

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 49**

_Shadow's Game_

_..._

Himeko scanned the area for Sensei, but there was no one around. Being in the middle of a large crowd made things much harder for her. He could be anywhere. She couldn't find him in the end, so she decided to look over at the place where she last felt his presence; on the roof of one of the taller buildings. There was no way of telling how long he had been trailing her for; he could have always known where she was and just watched her every move since the very beginning. Him just showing himself suddenly could have just been a reminder that they were still in the middle of training, and that she should stop side tracking and pay full attention to her surroundings. If not, it could have always been his way of saying _'come out, come out, wherever you are_': they were still in the middle of a game of tag after all. Whatever it meant, she knew that he had now finally caught up with her, and that she needed a way to hide for the rest of the game.

There was one thing she didn't understand though_, "I was wide open the entire time, why didn't he just attack?" _As soon as she got an idea of what might have stopped Sensei from attacking her, Himeko started walking towards a more densely populated area._ "It must be his Nen, he needs more space to use his Hatsu. In other words, he's in the same position as me, although he is a lot stronger than me. He knows where I am, but he has to find a way to catch me, but pulling off a stunt like that in public is impossible. Especially in public eyes when I'm still a minor."_

Although Himeko had a good point, she knew very well that she couldn't just wander around like that forever. Sensei could follow her forever, but he would somehow find a way to catch her off guard and strike. There wasn't going to be much time until that were to happen, so she had to think of something quickly.

While walking, she knew that she was being followed closely. Sensei was using _Zetsu_, so it was very hard to pinpoint him, but it wasn't rocket science to figure out that he was somewhere close-by. However, the more she walked, the further away she got from the more crowded area of the street. Eventually, the number of people passing by started to decrease, and she knew that she was going to reach the end of the road pretty soon. She could have kept walking around in circles near some of the boutiques, but would it really have made a difference? All she could have done was waste time, but even that wouldn't have lasted very long.

_"I can't get followed around forever, I need to find a way out of this,"_ she thought, _"but would it really be smart of me to leave this place when I'm being closely watched? He wants me to go somewhere we could fight with no disturbances."_

Himeko stopped walking and looked back at the more crowded shops she had just passed, before looking back at the end of the street. Once she got past that point, she knew Sensei could attack her at any moment. She could always turn back and wander around some more, trying to kill some more time, but it wouldn't make much of a difference.

_"It would be smarter of me to head back, but I'm just going to risk it today!_" she told herself, _"What's the worst that can happen? Break a few bones, and then get scolded by Sensei? That pretty much happens everyday at the dojo anyway, so I don't have much to lose." _Himeko slowly started to pick up her pace, _"it won't even matter if I use Nen or not, he'll know where I am regardless of whether I use Zetsu or not."_

After giving herself a determined nod, she started to run ahead, knowing that Sensei could attack at any moment. She still didn't know what his _Nen_ type was, so she had no idea what to expect. If anything, she could have kunai knives thrown at her. At least she had some training dodging those kind of attacks in the past. However, she kept running and running, but there was no surprise attack. She was one hundred and ten percent sure that Sensei was still following her, but for some odd reason, he wasn't doing anything although he had the perfect opportunity to. Maybe she was just being paranoid and Sensei lost her somewhere in the crowd. He was getting old after all, so he could be having vision problems. But then again, Sensei could track her down in that town with a blindfold on, so even if he had any sorts of vision problems, it wouldn't really matter.

_"That's strange, I'm sure he would have tried to attack at least once by now,"_ it was almost starting to bother her by now. Although she was running away as fast as she possibly could, she knew Sensei could keep up without even breaking a sweat. It wouldn't take much for him to just pop out of no where and tag her, but he just chose not to for some strange reason. It's as if he had something else in mind. As she kept running while trying to think of a reason for Sensei to keep quiet all this time, she stopped. Her body froze all of the sudden, and although her brain was commanding her leg muscles to keep going, they couldn't no matter how hard she tried. _"What the?!"_

"You are really bad at this game," a voice commented in a tone of disapproval, "even Toshiro is more fun to play with than you. It hasn't even been twenty minutes and I have already found you."

_"Then go easy on me, you old geezer!" _At this point Himeko wanted to protest, but she couldn't move a muscle, so she was stuck mentally cursing at her Sensei who was disappointed at how easy it was to find her. Himeko was trying to think of a reason why her body was frozen in that awkward running position with one of her legs in midair, unaware of the fact that Sensei was right behind her, stepping on her shadow. Sensei also had deep thoughts. He was trying to think of what to do next. It obviously was no fun to play tag with someone who, in his eyes ran at the pace of a snail. No, at this point even a snail seemed faster than her.

"Maybe I overestimated you, if Natsume or Toshiro were here I would have made them play tag with you instead." He remarked, much to her dismay. "You are just no fun, we have to find you someone on your level."

_"You are no fun to play tag with either!"_

"I know!" Sensei clapped his hands together at the thought of a new, brilliant idea. He stepped away from Himeko's shadow, making her fall forward due to the force she was using to move her muscles. Sensei bent down right next to her shadow and took a good look at it. He then went forth and peeled it off the ground; with a sound similar to sellotape being torn off a surface; separating the shadowy figure from both the floor and Himeko's body. "I've know someone who is on par with you," he announced. He knew that Himeko didn't stand a chance against him, but he was interested to see how well she fought against herself.

"Oh, really?" Himeko asked, groggily getting up while cleaning the dirt off her scraped knees. "Are you calling Toshi over or something?"

When Himeko looked back, she was met by a black, opaque figure her height. Judging by the shape and proportions of the figure, it resembled her. At the sight of this, she proceeded to slightly tilt her head left in confusion, and just like a mirror image her now alive shadow copied what she did. Unable to believe it, Himeko held her right hand up, only for her action to be mirrored by the shadow. Himeko continued by putting up her other hand, but instead of imitating her actions again, the shadow took the chance to land a slap on Himeko's cheek before running away, leaving Himeko dumbfoundedly caressing her red cheek. Her cheek stung, so it certainly wasn't a day dream of any sorts.

"What the hell is this?!" She yelled at Sensei, humiliated at the fact that her own shadow had just slapped her. "Is this your idea of a joke?"

Sensei on the other hand just calmly walked towards one of the nearby trees, sitting comfortably against it, "yes it is. It's hilarious," he said in a slightly amused tone, "you need to start off with an opponent who is at the same level as you, and what better person than yourself, am I wrong?"

She couldn't deny his point, it was indeed quite ingenious. Fighting herself would help her understand her own abilities, but that didn't make up for the fact that Sensei was sitting out this round because she was 'too boring' to play against. There was less than a month left until they had to go back to save Kite, and she was stuck playing hide and seek with her own shadow.

"You are not going home without your shadow today," Sensei pointed out, pointing in the direction her shadow ran, "she tagged you, so now you have to try and catch her and bring her back to me."

"She didn't tag me, she slapped me. I mean I slapped myself. This doesn't even make sense anymore!" Himeko groaned in annoyance.

"Slapping, tagging, it's practically the same thing," he shrugged indifferently, "just go after her. But I have to warn you, your shadow is a reflection of yourself."

_"No shit, Sherlock."_

"If you are a trickster, your shadow is bound to have a few tricks up her sleeves," he warned, "also, just because your shadow is allowed to use the drug's abilities doesn't give you the right to start using yours."

"What? Didn't you say that she was supposed to be on the same level as me?"

"She is, just that you have to hold back a lot today for training purposes." He answered, "I'll be sleeping, so wake me up once you are done. Hopefully we'll make it back in time for dinner."

"Dinner is eight hours away."

"Yes, so you better start moving."

Himeko let out a frustrated sigh, before she walked in the direction her shadow headed towards. Sensei mentioned that her shadow was bound to show the same personality traits as her, but that wasn't exactly a good thing. If anything, Himeko loved to play pranks once in a while, but she didn't like pranks being played on her. Neither did she like the fact that her shadow had an unfair advantage over her. At least she knew her own weaknesses, so she could use it against her shadow, but then again her shadow could do the same. At the end of the day, as easy as it sounds to go up against yourself, it really wasn't.

_"At least I can't use En, which means Shadow Kou won't be able to use it either. Now, if I were myself, what would I do to try and do to myself? I think I would try and piss myself off. Gosh, I'm starting to hate myself already, and I haven't even done anything yet. I'm not even making any sense anymore..."_

The sound of a branch being broken off alerted her, and she instinctively moved back before looking up. A large tree branch fell down in front of her, and she meet her own shadow standing on one of the higher branches on the tree.

"Hey, we are just trying to play a friendly game of tag. There is no need for us to kill each other!" She shouted in annoyance. Her shadow just hopped off the tree branch and ran into the dense woods, letting out a ear piercing, high pitched giggle, making Himeko squirm. _"To think that I'm capable of laughing like that..."_ She jumped over the branch before taking the deep breath, "Shadow Himeko, mark my words! No one gets away slapping me like that, not even my own shadow. You are so dead!"

Her words were loud enough to be heard by her shadow, and Shadow Himeko seemed to have accepted her challenge. Her high pitched giggle echoed through the woods, making Himeko cringe at the sound of her own voice yet again.

_"Damn, my voice can be annoying."_ She looked forth at the dense woods, and back at her Sensei who was fast asleep._ "I won't be satisfied unless I at least slap her back. Like they say, an eye for an eye, a slap for a slap, or something like that."_

Without hesitating any further, Himeko made her way into the densely covered woods, making Sensei, who was paying attention sigh. She was heading straight in without thinking of a plan or giving it any thought at all. Sure, her shadow must only be strong as her, but she also had to take two important factors into considerations. Firstly, her shadow was allowed to use both _Nen_ and full physical strength, while Himeko couldn't rely on the abilities given to her by the drug, making her physical strength only a small fraction of what her shadow was capable of. Secondly, she also had a second handicap being the weights strapped on both ankles and wrists. It might have just been the fact that she wasn't up against Sensei anymore that made her lower her guard, but she was obviously forgetting one important fact that made Sensei groan in despair.

Entering the forest created a third handicap; how was she supposed fight something that she couldn't see. In order to see a shadow, you need light; something a forest packed with trees clearly lacked. Although she was part of her, Himeko's shadow thought this through a lot more than the real thing. Not only did she have a clear advantage with her strength, she has also managed to lure her opponent into her territory. She had the clear upper hand.

Once Himeko was a good distance in the woods, she finally realised it. There was only enough light for her to make out the path, and that too was quite minimal. She took two small steps back, making sure to look out for anything and anyone in front of her, before she turned back around to get back out of the forest. But, once she turned her back to her opponent, her shadow chose to use the opportunity to strike. Himeko felt a light breeze of wind pass her from behind as she started heading back. It felt familiar; this was her _Nen_ abilities, being used by someone else against her.

The wind started to get a lot stronger all of the sudden, forcing Himeko to hold onto one of the taller trees to seek refuge to avoid being blown away. Easier said than done, the small rocks and dirt heading her way made it harder for her to hold on.

_"I should have thought it through before heading inside here, I can't even see where my shadow is." _The wind finally stopped, but that didn't mean that Himeko let her guard down. In case another wind spell came her way, she kept grasping onto the tree very tightly. _"I have a feeling she'll use the Aero Disk to get me away from the tree before using the Wind Blast again."_

Although it wasn't not noticeable at first, Himeko's Aero disk makes a specific sound. It wasn't very loud and often fades into the background, but if you listened closely, you could hear a high pitched sound similar to a very quiet whistle. It was something she was looking out for to determine both where the attack was coming from and where her opponent was attacking her from. It was very faint, but there was definitely something coming towards her from 8 o'clock. Finally letting go of the tree, she turned around and shot out her first attack to counter Shadow Himeko's Aero disk, completely destroying it. Once destroyed, Himeko heard faint rustling sounds heading towards her left. She listened intently, trying her best to follow the movement of her shadow. If she couldn't see her opponent, she should at least try and listen closely to whatever noises could be giving her a clue.

Himeko's eyes followed the trails of rustling noises, until it stopped all of the sudden. She expected an attack from the front, but while waiting for it she was kicked from behind and sent flying, until she hit a tree. Himeko didn't get time to even gasp as the next attack followed pretty soon after. Her shadow kept going without a break, randomly throwing punches and although Himeko was trying to block the attacks with her arms, she was too weak. All she could do was use _Ken_ to avoid any serious damage, but she couldn't keep it up for too long. _Ken_ started to drain her energy, but her shadow didn't seem to back down. Brute strength was all that was needed to keep Himeko on her defence.

_"I can't keep this up for much longer,"_ she thought, still trying to block the attacks. _"If she backed off for even thirty seconds, I could think of something."_

Shadow Himeko wouldn't back off even if you'd asked her to, so Himeko had to somehow find a way to force her to back off. It was time for her to fight back.

She stopped using _Ken,_ but in turn got punched in the stomach. Clutching her stomach with one hand, she landed her first attack against her shadow, "Wind blast!" She half-yelled, half-groaned.

The blast sent her shadow counterpart flying into the air, giving Himeko some time to catch her breath before getting up from the rocky ground. Instead of heading out of the forest, she headed deeper inside while trying to tolerate the pain in her abdomen. Once she was a good distance away, she lifted her t-shirt to check whether there were any serious injuries, only to find a deep purple bruise around her upper abdominal area.

_"That bitch,"_ she mentally hissed at her shadow in pain. She found it unfair how her shadow had such an unfair advantage over her. She couldn't even think of cheating, Himeko knew that Sensei wasn't actually asleep. He was observing the fight from a far so he could criticise her later on the day. _"I've been jogging around this area every morning, and if I remember correctly, the forest has a less dense area somewhere around here. If I lure her in there, then I would at least know where she is. Until then, I have to find a way to manage."_

While Himeko was trying to find her way around, her shadow kept watch from a tree, waiting for a good opportunity to attack. Just because she was her shadow didn't mean she was any dumber than Himeko. The shadow knew that Himeko has gotten the gist of this. It wasn't too hard for the two of them to put themselves in their opponent's shoes because technically, their opponents were themselves. The shadow knew that Himeko had her guard up now, and had to find a way for her to lower her guard.

She carefully climbed down the tree as quietly as possible, making sure that Himeko didn't hear anything. Once she found a large enough rock, she started climbed back up, again with caution. Looking back at Himeko, she seemed as cautious as ever, thoroughly scanning the area while walking towards her destination. Shadow Himeko was going to use one of the oldest tricks in the book, but she knew that she herself would fall for it.

The shadow was around twenty feet behind her, and threw the rock so it fell into one of the bushes a couple of feet in front of Himeko. The rustling sound diverted Himeko's attention for a good few second, giving her shadow a perfect opportunity to attack. Himeko blocked the kick from behind with her back arm, but she couldn't keep it up for too long. The brute force used by her shadow caused her to retreat. Himeko noticed that her shadow was wasting no time to charge for another Aero disk.

"Wind blast!" It wasn't going to do much damage, but Himeko wanted to buy some time. Shadow Himeko had to stop charging her attack to stay on her feet, and this gave Himeko the chance to charge an attack against her opponent, "Heaven's punishment number three; Whirlwind!"

It was an attack that was still in the process of being perfected, something Himeko could do since she started using her wind _Hatsu_. Making little whirlwind was a way for her to practice visualising wind, so she planned to develop it into a bigger attack once she was strong enough to do so. Her shadow counterpart wasn't too stunned by the appearance of it, being well aware of the fact that both of them knew how make one. It was a surprise to see Himeko use this attack at that moment though, and she didn't know how to stop it too. Himeko didn't know how to stop it either, she knew that it would eventually become smaller and disappear; it wasn't big enough to cause real damage in the first place. But the fact that she didn't know made her sure that her shadow wouldn't know either.

While her shadow was astonished by Himeko's attack, Himeko took the chance to find her way to a good spot to continue the fight; somewhere her shadow couldn't hide. It didn't take much for her shadow to snap out of it and chase after her, and she was managing to catch up pretty quickly. Himeko had to think of a plan, quick!

"Hey, Shadow Kou, you shouldn't try and hurt me," Himeko yelled while trying to pick up her speed, "if you hurt me and scar me for life, I might end up looking less attractive which would cause Kurapika to never like me and me to end up forever alone. This means that you will never have a chance with Kurapika's shadow or anyone for that matter."

"How does that even make any sense?" Her shadow questioned. Although Himeko couldn't see her shadow yet again, based off the loudness of the voice, she could somehow work out the distance between them. She decided to keep going.

"Of course it would make sense. Think about it, if it's my idea and makes sense to me, then it's supposed to make sense to you too!"

"For now, we've promised Gon that we will help him save Kite." Shadow Himeko reminded her in a more serious tone, "there is nothing else on our mind other than to get stronger."

The voice of her shadow was now louder than it was before. She was getting closer.

"We don't have to fight each other to become stronger," Himeko pointed out, "let's just sip some tea and give each other tips, okay?"

"I'm fighting you so the two of us become stronger," her shadow replied in the same, serious tone, "if you were the stronger half, you would do the same thing."

At this point in time, Himeko realised one thing. Arguing with yourself was a lot harder that she thought.

"You don't know that."

However, once Himeko argued back and waited for a response, there was nothing. Nonetheless, Himeko kept running until she was tripped and fell onto her stomach, covering her clothes in mud.

"Of course I know, I'm you after all." Himeko looked up to see her shadow standing right in front of her. "I know you initiated the conversation to keep track of where I was all this time, and I know you are trying to lure me into a well lit area. You aren't even fighting and want to get this over and done with because I'm stronger than you are right now. If you want to help Gon, you have to win this fight, and to do that you have to fight." As Himeko tried to get back up on her feet, Shadow Himeko stepped on her back to keep her down. "Grow a spine and start fighting me already. Are we going to keep running away from every opponent that's stronger than us?"

Himeko struggled against her shadow's force that was keeping her down, "I never expected to be listening to advice from myself."

"I never expected to be giving myself advice either," her shadow added. The conversation died down soon after, now leaving Himeko trying to get back on her feet. Her shadow however didn't make things easy for her at all, increasing the pressure once Himeko managed to budge just a little. With hardly any strength left to keep pushing against her shadow's leg, Himeko gave in and collapsed back onto the floor. Turning her head to the side, she looked for a way out, but other than trees she couldn't find anything.

One tree was a couple of metres to her right, _"I can try making that tree fall."_

After charging one of her Aero disks, she watched it rush past the tree into the distance, and kept an eye out for it.

"Aren't you going to keep trying?" Her shadow asked, getting slightly annoyed at the fact that Himeko wasn't trying to stand back up anymore. Himeko kept quiet, silently watching the disk take it's usual u-turn and returning towards them, slicing the tree in half and heading towards her shadow. Shadow Himeko effortlessly dodged the Aero disk, freeing Himeko from her grip and allowing her to get away before the tree fell on them. Her shadow was too focused on the actual attack to notice the tree falling and didn't dodge. Himeko watched the tree fall on her.

It was too easy to be true: or that's what Himeko thought. There was still enough time for her shadow to dodge, but she decided not to. Not to soon after, the now fallen tree broke into two pieces. Her shadow managed to kick the thick tree into pieces without breaking a sweat. Leaving the fallen tree pieces behind, her shadow disappeared into the darkness once again.

Himeko's _Zetsu_ was outstanding, which explained why it was so difficult to find her shadow who had the same abilities as her. The only way to find someone using _Zetsu_ was to use _En_. Himeko didn't know how to use _En_, let alone did she have the capabilities to learn _En_ within the next five minutes. She had to find another way to track her opponent down, even if she had to attach a fluorescent tag onto her shadow.

_"I can't even defeat myself, how am I supposed to beat Sensei after this?"_ She wondered, _"Sensei's Nen is amazing, being able to keep my shadow alive for such a long time must require a lot of energy. And to think that this is only a fraction of his Nen abilities..." _Once she started thinking about it from a whole different perspective, it finally struck a chord. _"Nen! That's it!"_ She exclaimed, _"The only reason I can't sense her is because she is using Zetsu, but the only reason she is alive is because of Sensei's Nen. Sensei must be using In, which is why I can't sense his Nen from her. If I can't try and sense my shadow's Nen using Zetsu, I can try and sense Sensei's Nen using Gyo."_

She wasted no time using Gyo to try and track down her shadow, before she could get a chance to strike again. Himeko looked around, and there she was about to attack again. Her shadow prepared to attack her from above, and Himeko waited. Shadow Himeko didn't seem like she was going to use _Nen_, instead she was going for a strong punch. Himeko stood still until her shadow was close enough for her to act. She took off one of the wrist weights she was wearing and threw it right at her, using _Shu_ to create a greater impact.

Hitting her face, Shadow Himeko was knocked down. Himeko took the opportunity to knock her unconscious before she stood up, back onto her feet. The game was finally over, and Himeko victoriously headed back to Sensei carrying her shadow on her back, and picking up the twenty kilo wrist weight she threw along the way.

Once Himeko got back, Sensei was still sitting against the tree in the original position he was. She knew very well that Sensei must have kept watch and pretended to be asleep now. Nonetheless, she woke him up and showed him her still unconscious shadow, declaring victory.

"I won, so please stick my shadow on the floor where it belongs. One of me in this world is more than enough."

"It took you much less than I initially thought," he commented. Himeko didn't reply, and just took it as a compliment. But fighting herself made her think about some things.

_"My shadow was stronger than me, but she wasn't strong enough,"_ she started thinking back to the fight, _"But although I only trained for a couple of days, I'm stronger than I was before I started training. Shadow Kou was stronger than me at the start of the month. Let's hope I continue to become stronger."_

"That reminds me," Sensei snapped her out of her thoughts.

"What is it?"

"You cheated."

"What?"

"I told you not to remove your weights, but you removed your wrist weight to knock your opponent out."

In a state of shock, Himeko tried to come up with a valid excuse ,"but I just used my resources, I would have done that in a real fight. You told me to pretend that this is a real fight!"

"Rules are rules," Sensei shook his head in disappointment, "as a penalty, you have to play another round, but this time with me!"

"Oh, come on!"

...

Gon and Killua silently stared at Himeko's half dead corpse lying on the sofa. She who came back from training two hours ago, collapsed onto the sofa straight away without a word and fell asleep. Since then, she was peacefully snoring away, trying to regain all the energy she lost during the training.

"Do you think she's going to be okay?" Gon asked Killua, worrying that she hasn't even eaten yet.

"I'd rather play tag than practice my _Ren_ all day," Killua replied enviously.

Once it was exactly eight o'clock at night, the sound of Himeko's alarm went off and she woke up to switch it off.

"She woke up," Gon commented.

Killua nodded, "yeah, I can see!"

After getting off the sofa, Himeko did a couple of stretches to feel more awake.

"Kou, how was training?" Gon asked while she was training.

"No comment," she replied in a state of gloom, remembering having that one on one battle with Sensei after the little tag game with her shadow. Of course, it was more like a one sided ass kicking session, where Sensei did all the ass kicking and she just got her ass kicked.

"What did you do?" Gon continued to question her out of pure curiosity. Whatever happened during her training must have been a lot more interesting that Bisky's training method.

"I had a battle with myself," she answered indifferently, "then I fought Sensei."

"A battle with herself?" Gon asked Killua in confusion.

"Maybe she's just speaking metaphorically," he shrugged, not being able to come up with a better reason. The two boys proceeded to watch Himeko pack her rucksack and put it on.

"Are you going somewhere?" Gon asked.

"I'm going to train my _Hatsu_ on my own outside."

Killua raised his brow, "at this hour?"

"Do you want me to destroy this building then?" She asked him sarcastically, "it's not even that late, and I won't have anything better to do until bed time anyway."

"It's a shame that you can't come and watch us fight Knuckle today," Gon sighed in slight disappointment.

"Yeah..." Himeko's voice trailed off.

Killua noticed a slight change in expression on Himeko's face, _"she's up to something..." _

Before Gon could ask her any more questions about where she was going to train or how she was going to do it, she left the apartment. "Good luck with the fight you two!"

Gon and Killua watched her exit and continued taking their hard earned break. Bisky soon came back from her toilet break to continue training the boys. While Bisky continued to train the two again, Himeko returned to the forest, but this time without Sensei. She couldn't tell him, or anyone at all for that matter that she was going to use _Vows and Limitations _but she knew that it was the only way for her _Hatsu_ to become strong enough to fight the ants. However, she didn't exactly know how she was going to do it. She didn't exactly know what she wanted, and neither did she know how she was going to obtain it. She had less than a month to do it, that was all she knew at that point.

Thinking back to less than a year ago, she was in a similar position. She knew her _Nen_ type was transmutation, but she didn't know what she was going to do with just that. Before she started to actually get on her feet and start training, she had to think. Having no other resources available, she did some research on the Hunter website about the basics of conjuration. Although she couldn't get much information, she got enough to know what she had to be doing. Similarly to transmutation, she had to visualise her abilities but instead, she had to create an object using her _Nen_ instead of just mimicking the properties of one. With the rough base in mind, she started mediating.

Eleven o'clock: Himeko eventually stopped. She got out a small notebook and pen out before writing down the progress she made thus far.

There was a bracelet drawn on the previous page, similar to the one she saw in the jewellery store earlier on that day. However, the bracelet had no charms drawn on yet.

She wrote down her first condition.

_'I can only use each charm once a day. If I were to break this rule, the bracelet would break and fall apart.'_

She wrote down her second limitation.

_'Once broken, the bracelet cannot be repaired.'_

When she was done, she packed back up and headed towards the part of the forest Gon and Killua would have their fight with Knuckle. Since nobody knew about her surprise visit, Himeko had to keep a low profile to make sure no one caught her. She thought that the risk was worth it, knowing that she'll learn a lot watching the two fight Knuckle.

...

Netero's time limit was nearly over, and the month had nearly passed. During the month, Bisky stuck to the same old method of teaching she used since the start of the month by making the boys improve their _Ren, _and then sending them out at midnight to fight Knuckle. Shoot did not appear throughout the month and just like Himeko, he quietly stood on the side lines observing the fights between Knuckle and Gon. Since Shoot was absent for the whole month, Killua did not get an opportunity to test how strong he became over the month, but judging by how well the boys coped with Bisky's training, they improved drastically.

In contrast to Bisky, Sensei used various methods to trip Himeko up. Once she started to get the hang of one training method, he changed to another to keep challenging her, but with the month still not over, she couldn't use her full strength. It was hard for her to determine how much stronger she got at this point, but she decided to trust Sensei and keep training. Once Sensei's training session was over, she would rest and train her conjuration abilities by herself at night before wandering off to observe Gon's fights with Knuckle.

It was the evening before the deadline. Gon and Killua were getting ready to leave earlier than usual that day. Maybe it was just the excitement of finally being able to prove what you've learnt over the month, or maybe it was the anxiety of whether they were going to win the most important fight so far this month. Gon was overflowing with excitement for the upcoming fight, while Killua seemed a little anxious and bothered by something. It was too obvious, and no one managed to notice it except for maybe Bisky who seemed to know what was going on.

"Good luck you two," Himeko gave them a nervous smile. She had spent the past month watching Gon and Knuckle fight, and although Gon did become a lot stronger, Knuckle did so too. Killua's opponent on the other hand was missing in action, so she had no clue what he was capable of, but then again she trusted Gon's and Killua's abilities more than her own.

Gon nodded full of determination, "if we win today's fight, we can go and find Kite."

"Let's go," Killua announced.

Gon nodded back at him, "yeah!"

Bisky, Himeko and Sensei sent them off and watched them leave. Even Palm took a peek from the slightly ajar door to watch the two boys walk away. Once they were out of sight, Sensei stretched and walked back into the apartment. He was done training Himeko for the month, so his job was done and she was allowed to do things her own way from now on. But whether she was allowed to go back into NGL or not was all up to Gon and Killua now.

In the end, Bisky and Himeko stood there in silence, waiting for the other to start a conversation.

"That reminds me, I have to go and train too!" Himeko exclaimed, before she was heading into the same direction Killua and Gon were headed to watch their fights, but she was stopped by Bisky.

Bisky grabbed her wrist, preventing her from taking another step. "Training can wait, we need to have another talk."

"Now?" Himeko questioned. The two way battle wasn't going to start for another couple of hours, but Himeko still found it inconvenient to have a talk right then. "Can't we talk tomorrow?"

"Kou, I wasn't born yesterday and neither was your Sensei," Bisky stated, "we both know that you went to watch them fight every night. Don't worry, they won't start fighting until midnight, but I'm planning to leave tonight."

"Tonight?"

"Yep, and I figured that I'd like to have one last chat with you before I go."

* * *

**A/n-** Sorry for the long absence! The journey to school is really long and I usually end up falling asleep as soon as I get home because it's tiring T_T But don't worry, I won't abandon this fanfiction although I might be a little slow at updating it!

**Replies to Reviews:**

**SilverDewDrop- **Your friends are pretty nice in that case. My friend already picked out four names out for my kids. I don't even want four kids xD Well, everyone seems to be leaning more towards Killua, and I won't really blame them. They seem to have more interactions than Kurapika and Kou. Once again, I'll let the story unravel so you will eventually get your answer ;)

**havanatitania-** Thank you so much, that honestly means so much to me. By that I mean you saying that my writing style keeps you interested. I sometimes worry that I ramble too much and make readers lose interest... And regarding love interest, it's definitely not GonxKou. I feel like Gon can't possibly develop feelings for someone like her xD So now onto the question that keeps readers of this fanfic wanting to rip their hairs out. Is it KouxKillua or KouxKurapika? For now that's for you to think about and me to reveal later on ;)

**SlightlyYandereMelissa-** Yeah, I have the same problem with K-dramas. I tend to lose interest after a couple of episodes because I have a short attention span, but my friend still makes me watch them with her lol xD

**Mikamizu Mouri-** Thank you for your review, and it's nice hearing from you again :)

**Hikari. AA-** Thank you for your review, and I hope you liked the update :D

**JokeLover123-** Pandoras aren't expensive at all! They are pretty reasonable, as long as you don't go for the 14k gold stuff there. Plus they are really cute, so that's a plus! I was thinking more of something within the Tiffany's&amp;Co price range because those just have way to many digits on their price tags.

**Guest-** Maybe you should! If you do then just let me know so I know it's you :)

**Another Cosmology-** Hey, firstly I like to thank you for giving me your honest opinion! I see where you are coming from with the chimera ant arc being meant for Gon and Killua, but I interpreted it as the arc where everyone starts to mature and develop. Similarly with the Election arc being the arc where Leorio develops as a character. But like I said, I do see where you are coming from which is why I added a few changes to this arc so Gon and Killua train together etc, and Kou trains by herself. The future chapters will have changes like that too, but I really appreciate how open minded you are and that you kept reading although you disagreed with certain aspects of this.

And Pitou was honestly one of the highlights for me in the chimera arc. She was a lot more interesting than the other two guards and the King, plus she grew on me when she put her life on the line to protect Komugi because she was important to the King. She also started to pity Gon when he was starting to lose it after discovering that Kite couldn't be saved. Gon being Gon might have actually felt sorry for Pitou after discovering that her death was for nothing. Who knows, she might have actually turned out to be pretty cool if she were still alive at the end of the arc.


	50. Gon vs Knuckle Killua vs Shoot

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 50**

Gon vs. Knuckle; Killua vs. Shoot

...

"Here is your caramel latte, and your mocha." The barista said in an irritated voice, giving her a fake smile before placing the two disposable coffee cups onto the counter.

"Just so you know, only the mocha is my order. The caramel latte was my friend's," Himeko informed him, lowering her head in slight embarrassment, but the barista's expression didn't change.

"Have a nice day, and I'll be looking forward to seeing _you_ again at Moonbucks." His words roughly translated to _'if you care about your well being, I suggest that you do not come back when I'm around.'_

Himeko quietly bowed her head, knowing that the barista would snap right back at her if she were to try and prove her innocence again. With the two cups, she made her way to the small, wooden table for two in a corner of the cafe where Bisky was already seated.

"Here!" She lightly slammed Bisky's cup on the table, making sure nothing spills, "your trenta, no foam, five shot, half caff., no foam, caramel latte with no foam and extra syrup!" Himeko took a deep breath after saying that mouth-full Moonbucks order, and then sat down on the empty chair opposite Bisky.

Bisky was slightly amused by the fact that Himeko took the effort to remember that long order and got her what she requested instead of just getting her a regular caramel latte, "you could have just ordered a regular caramel latte instead, I was just joking with the long order."

"Thanks for nothing," Himeko mumbled sarcastically, "I can still feel that barista glaring daggers at me." She took a little sip from her own drink, making sure it wasn't too hot. Once she gave it a quick test sip, she proceeded to take bigger sips on her mocha. "Why are we in a coffee shop in the first place? If you wanted to talk, we could have talked at home."

"I figured that we needed some privacy, so I brought us here."

_"You can't exactly ask for privacy in a public place."_

"That, and I wanted some coffee."

_"You just wanted coffee, you don't care about privacy at all."_

Bisky took a couple of satisfying sips from her coffee before starting the main conversation, "the bracelet you were wearing earlier on, did you lose it?" Himeko froze at her words, but she didn't check her wrist for the bracelet like any normal human being would do. She knew it wouldn't be there, so she kept staring at Bisky, wanting her to continue. "Strange... I can see it with _Gyo_. I always thought you were a transmuter, not a conjurer."

To avoid being caught, Himeko used _In_ to hide the bracelet before leaving the apartment to go to the coffee shop, but Bisky spotted it quite long ago. She just decided not to ask all this time. The fact that Himeko went out to train on her own was no secret, but what she was doing by herself wasn't known to anyone. Sensei trusted her abilities and decided not to intervene, and at some point both Sensei and Bisky noticed the conjured, silver item dangling on Himeko's wrist. Himeko didn't exactly lie, she was going to train her _Hatsu _in the first place. She just didn't specify whether she was going to practice using her old attacks or whether she was going to develop a new one. It didn't bother her much, they were going to find out sooner or later. At least there was no way of them finding out whether she used _Vows and Limitations_ or not.

Himeko released her _In_ and the bracelet with just one, single charm became visible. It was a charm of a silver katana, with a shiny, blue rhinestone on the tip of the blade. She couldn't keep up her _In_ for much longer anyway, so Bisky did her a favour of informing her that she already knew.

"I learnt how to conjure items over the month, and I created this," Himeko confessed, "it's still not complete, but today is the last day so I can't do much about it. At least it's better than nothing."

"I've heard of conjuring weapons, but I've never heard of anyone conjuring jewellery before." Bisky pointed out, before she continued to mock Himeko, "maybe you can teach me how to make a set of earrings."

"It's a weapon, not a piece of pretty jewellery," Himeko snapped. "I can't afford to carry a sword around everywhere, so I had to find a better way. I'm still not strong enough to conjure items out of no where and dispel them either, so I had to find a way for someone like me to be able to do it without needing as much energy."

"Impressive!" Bisky exclaimed, "and you managed to do it all alone in a month's time too. Either you are a genius, or you cheated somehow."

"I'm not a genius, and I didn't cheat either. I just took a shortcut."

"You used _Vows and Limitations_, didn't you?"

"So what if I did?"

"Wow, you are actually telling me the truth!" Bisky was surprised by her sudden honestly.

"Big deal, you have to leave the town in a bit, so you won't have the time to lecture me."

_"If this wasn't a public place, I would have punched you by now,"_ Bisky clenched her fists, trying to control her anger. However, she didn't seem too bothered by her using _Vows and Limitations; _not as bothered as Natsume and Kurapika that is. "The only reason you were told to stay away from that technique is because it's dangerous when used incorrectly. You can become a lot stronger with it if you use it the right way."

"Don't worry, I'm not planning to die before completing my to-do list."

"Those are some big words for someone your size."

_"You are the last person I want to hear that from," _Himeko thought to herself. "By the way, was that all you wanted to ask me?"

Bisky shook her head, and put her now half empty cup back down onto the table, "I need you to do me a favour once I'm gone."

"Sure, what is it?" It wasn't rare for Bisky to ask for favours. So far, Bisky's so called 'favours' ended up in a couple of shopping trips around town, but Himeko doubted that this was the case. Bisky seemed a lot more serious about the favour she was about to ask her.

Bisky sighed, "Killua and I made a deal last night. If he were to to lose today's fight against Shoot, he agreed to leave Gon's side." Himeko slowly put her cup on the table too, wondering whether she had just heard her correctly. She couldn't actually believe that Killua agreed to do something like that after all they've been through since the Hunter exam. Were they even talking of the same Killua, or did Bisky know a different Killua who was friends with another Gon? "Listen up, I don't know what it is with kids these days but you all give up way too fast, and you are no exception to that."

"Are you telling me to leave Gon too?" Himeko questioned, "I'm not going to agree to that like Killua did."

"I'm not your teacher, so I have no right to tell you to leave their side."

"Then why are you telling me this?" she asked. "You know very well that I'm going to try and talk Killua out of it somehow."

"That is exactly why I'm telling you, I don't want you to talk him out of it." Bisky explained. "He is old enough to make these kinds of decisions for himself, and he is old enough to find a solution to his own problem. He was trained to be overly cautious, smothered with love by someone who is too overprotective of him and spoilt rotten because of that. He's too quick to run away, not knowing whether or not the opponent is actually stronger than him. With that weak mentality, he will leave his friends to die one day, including you and Gon."

Hearing that, Himeko swallowed down what felt like a big lump in her throat. She hadn't thought of that possibility all this time, especially since she was quick to chose running away over fighting too. During all these days, what would have happened if she did leave one of her friends behind to die. This was one instance where she was reminded of Shinatobe, someone she couldn't save even though she tried so hard. Although she tried and failed, she still felt remorse; but what is she was just too afraid and ran away. The guilt would have eaten her up alive. "What's wrong with being scared once in a while, it doesn't make him any different from me. I'm certainly not going to ditch my friends when they're in danger."

"You are looking down on yourself because you are never satisfied with what you do, he is overestimating his opponents because of the slight possibility that they may be stronger than him. It might seem like the same problem, but both have different solutions. You just need to boost your own confidence, while he needs to stop overestimating everyone he comes face to face with." Bisky told her, "There are more ways to win a battle than just relying on pure strength. I'm sure you would know best because that is essentially what your Sensei taught you all month."

_'Strength isn't everything when it comes to fighting'_ is something Himeko heard over and over again while training, but she never knew how true this was until now. Logic and wit could get you a long way, and that's exactly what Sensei had been teaching her for the past month. Whatever challenge he threw at her couldn't be done with pure strength alone, she had to think of a way to logically find a way out. From the first challenge with the heavy book with _Ren _where she had to use _Ten_ to put up with the immense pressure,to the fight with her own shadow where she used _Gyo_ to spot the shadow in the dark because _En_ wasn't an option; all these made her understand that it was important to think everything through before acting on it. Running away from your problems couldn't accomplish anything, and she was glad that she didn't have to learn that the hard way.

"Let me put it into context for you," Bisky continued, "if you have a bad day, or let's just say that you are on your period, would you be able to perform to the best of your abilities? Everyone is the same, even if you are facing someone stronger than you, the chance of them being able to use their full potential isn't always one hundred percent; or that's at least what I told Killua, minus the period part of course. I gave him all the advice I could, the rest is up to him to figure out. He can't be spoon-fed forever, I figured he'd work harder if the stakes are higher."

For some reason, the conversation was starting to make her feel sick in her stomach. "What if he loses today, but becomes stronger later on? He is capable of picking things up pretty quickly, and either way do you think Gon will be okay with Killua just leaving like that?"

"He won't, but I doubt Killua would tell him, knowing how stubborn Gon is. If Killua learns to think of things in a less negative way by the end of today's fight, everything will be okay," she reassured, "After all, a half empty cup is only half empty if you think of it that way. It could also be half full if you think of it from another angle."

"I guess so."

"While I'm gone, watch over those two for me. Killua has to find a way to deal with his inferiority complex. You know how it must feel like, so hopefully you will try to get along with him better, even if it's out of self-pity. Gon on the other hand will do something reckless if he doesn't have anyone to watch over him. While sane Killua tries to snap out whatever is holding him back, I can only rely on my other option."

_"Self-pity?" _Himeko took a moment to think whether Bisky was actually right about that. She was right, no matter how hard she worked herself, she still was never satisfied with herself. If she came across someone stronger, she would start to put herself down by calling herself weak. Since the clan died, she grew up, cut her hair, changed her attitude, became less afraid to finally speak her mind; it was almost as if she became a completely different person. But even after all these years, she kept looking down on herself.

"I don't know why I'm telling you all this, I guess I just felt like it." Bisky shrugged before picking up her coffee cup again, "besides, aren't you all friends? Watch after them and make sure they don't end up in some kind of mess."

Killua was usually the one to make sure that no one acted reckless and kept the two under control, but now he had his own problems to deal with. Himeko was sure that Gon was the only reckless one in the group all this time, only to be reminded that there were some things she herself did without thinking. Whether it was a sudden adrenaline rush when put in a tough spot, or just plain stupidity, it didn't change the fact that she could have gotten herself killed a countless number of times if there wasn't someone to stop her; one of those people being Killua. Gon wasn't the only one who took it for granted all this time, she did too. She never actually hated him all this time, she was just envious of how much attention he got from his family. Maybe Bisky was right, maybe she should start being a little nicer to him and start showing some kind of gratitude.

Once she was done talking, Bisky returned to drinking her luke warm drink, while Himeko was put off hers. The main reason Killua joined the Hunter exam was to make a friend, and when he befriended Gon, he seemed pretty happy. Even when he came face to face with Illumi, he still managed to stutter out that he didn't want to go back home and wanted to stay to become friends with Gon, although he was shaking in fear. No matter how she thought of it, it upset her. She couldn't even imagine how shocked and betrayed Gon would feel once he found out. For this reason alone, she was hoping that they'd win their fight against Knuckle and Shoot no matter what.

While Bisky was finishing her coffee, they had some small talk, nothing majorly important. Talking about their favourite desserts, Bisky's favourite boutiques and when they could meet up again to do things together as a two without the boys. But eventually it was finally done to leave the cafe, and for the two girls to part ways. Bisky made sure to check whether she took all her belongings, before looking back at Himeko.

"Good luck, don't do anything reckless." Bisky told her sternly. Himeko just gave her a nod to imply that she understood, making Bisky's expression soften. She pulled Himeko into one last goodbye hug and lightly hit her shoulder after letting go. "Cheer up, will you! Don't look so depressed, you'll end up walking around with rain clouds over your head."

"At least I'd stand out that way," Himeko joked with a slight smile on her face. Bisky smiled back before picking up her bags from the ground.

"I'll see you around then," she said, "call me if you have any problems." Bisky said her final goodbyes and then headed towards the town's train station, leaving Himeko waving her goodbye. Bisky left knowing that Himeko might still try and convince Killua to stay if he lost his fight, but at least now Himeko knew that Gon and her weren't the only ones with certain things on their minds. With Bisky now gone, Himeko had no reason to stay there any longer and slowly headed back to their apartment.

Upon entering, she found her Sensei waiting for her in the living room with a packed bag. Of course, it made sense to her. Sensei didn't come on vacation after all, he came to train her. Now that Netero's time period was over, he had no business left there. Now that Bisky had left, Himeko found it uneasy to let Sensei go back too. Those two were her only help lines, but now that both of them were going back, she knew that she had to stand on her own two feet now.

"Are you going back too now?" Himeko asked, saddened. It was a stupid question, of course it was time for him to go back. He couldn't stay there forever, he belonged in Kioto and had to look after the dojo and shrine his ancestors left him behind.

"I agreed to train you for a month and the month is now over," Sensei informed her, "there isn't much else I can do, the rest is up to you." Himeko gave him a disheartened nod in reply. Saying that there was nothing left for him to teach her was a huge overstatement. If anything, Himeko still had quite a lot to learn, but for now, Sensei knew that she could look after herself. "There is no reason to look so down, you have improved tremendously. You should have more confidence," he continued, "I didn't want to let you go back to NGL at the start, but now I'm sure you'll be able to look after yourself."

"Thank you for coming all this way just to train me."

"It would be quite bad if one of my very few disciples died in battle, don't you agree?"

"Yeah."

"Speaking of disciples, you'll be seeing Natsume and Toshiro again tomorrow regardless of whether your two friends win or not," Sensei reminded. "Make sure to tell them to be careful. And let Natsume know that he didn't do his futon before he left for the mission." Himeko briefly smiled remembering how Sensei always nagged Natsume to clean his part of the room he shared with the other two. It was so bad, you could actually identify which part of the room was his. He didn't think there was a point in folding something that was going to be made a mess again later on the day.

Himeko quietly accompanied Sensei outside, where he then went his separate way back to the dojo in Kioto. She lived at the dojo, but that didn't change the fact that this could be the last time she saw Sensei. Although she was significantly stronger than she was before, she could still die in battle if she went back to NGL. She had to keep that in mind. But she was satisfied at the thought that she thanked him before he left, just incase this was going to be the last time she saw him. Not just because he came all this way to train her, but more importantly because he gave her an opportunity to join the dojo, give her a new home and give her an opportunity to become strong.

Once again, Himeko just waved him goodbye and watched him go, until he was completely out of sight. She then decided to go back upstairs to the deserted apartment, and walked past Palm in the kitchen to the fridge. She took out a water bottle before seeing what Palm was up to, only to see her sharpening a set of knives, in case Gon and Killua lost. At least Bisky and Sensei managed to escape right in time before she snapped. _"Two crazy people are gone, the craziest one of them all is still lurking around the apartment."_

Himeko drank her bottled water, watching Palm preparing her knives just in case she needed to kill someone; because that's what normal people do apparently. It was pretty normal of Palm to do something like that, so Himeko could care-freely watch her. The sound created by the knife blade being grinded against the rock was oddly satisfying; it reminded her of the times she had to sharpen blunt katana blades at the dojo. But all of the sudden, the sound stopped and Palm looked up, her hair covering most of her face.

"Do you think Gon will win today?" She asked. Now, this was a trick question. If she were to say no, then Palm would snap. If she were to say yes but they lose the fight, Palm would snap. If she were to say 'I don't know', then Palm would try and make her say either yes or no. Instead, Himeko answered the question with silence. "Gon promised that he will beat those two so I can go and help Knov-sensei."

"Gon and Killua want to save Kite, we want to go to NGL as much as you do," Himeko reminded her, putting the water bottle back where it belonged. "They will do their best."

"Are you going to watch them fight?"

"Yeah."

"And you know that I won't be able to hold back if they lose." Palm's hand was shaking, along with the knife she was holding onto tightly, making Himeko back away a few steps just to be sure that she could run away if Palm snapped earlier than expected.

_"Geez, learn some damn self control woman and put those knives away already." _She thought, but didn't say out loud for obvious reasons. "You know, you don't _have_ to kill us. We are friends aren't we? Let's just put the knives away and be happy people with no psychopathic intentions, 'kay?"

"I can't, I held back too long."

"In that case, I'll be on my way." Himeko gave her a nervous smile, "I might not come home tonight, so don't bother making me dinner. If I don't come back then I'll be fine, just don't try and look for me or anything, ha ha ha. Ha." After letting out that fit of nervous laughter, Himeko wasted no time to walk out of the door and shut it. Once she was outside, she started to run for her life, literally, making sure Palm wasn't following.

...

_"Looks like I made it just in time."_

Gon, Killua, Knuckle and Shoot were standing face to face, spending a brief moment looking their opponents in the eye. Himeko used the opportunity to find a good place to sit without being seen. So far, she had only seen Knuckle and Gon fight but she had yet to see Knuckle's _Hatsu_. Although he found Gon over the past couple of weeks, he had not used it even once. He had actually used the opportunity to train Gon, knowing how determined he was to go back to NGL and save Kite. Shoot however was a bigger mystery. She saw him a couple of times watching over Knuckle's and Gon's fights but he never chose to show himself. His abilities, just like Knuckle's also remained unknown. Though Himeko's seen Gon improve in his abilities during each match, she hasn't seen Killua fight once although Bisky claimed to have given him a one to one lesson.

Eventually, the two teams split up and Gon and Knuckle chose their usual spot by the giant clock to fight. Killua and Shoot headed towards the forest to find a more suitable place to fight in peace. As soon as Killua and Shoot were off their battle ground, Gon and Knuckle wasted no time to start.

"Here I go, Gon," Knuckle released his _Ren_ and ripped off his white jacket, "like I promised, I won't hold back."

Gon too released his _Ren_, "bring it on!" He shot back.

_"Looks like this'll be interesting to watch," _Himeko thought to herself. Although she watched the two fight countless of times before, they were a lot more driven today. She looked forward to see Shoot fight for the first time, but somehow Knuckle and Gon had caught her interest for now._ "Dang it, I could have brought some popcorn and a drink!"_

Gon was going on the defence, knowing Knuckle was going to attack. He was correct, Knuckle charged at him at high speed, too fast for Gon and Himeko to make out the movements. While Himeko was trying her best to look out for Knuckle's movements, Gon tried to use _En_ to sense his opponent. Knuckle was too fast, and landed a full blown punch right on Gon's face. Gon slid back and eventually came to a hold. Instead of going for a counter attack though, Gon started to look a little confused.

_"What's he doing?"_ Himeko waited for Gon to make a more, but he just seemed to be staring at his hand for a while, until something crawled up on his shoulder. A small, white mascot with a blue body, white gloves and tiny wings. On it's forehead, there seemed to be some sort of display with the number 210 on it.

Gon's eyes widened as he looked over at what was hanging on his shoulder, _"w-what is this thing?!"_

On the contrary, Himeko's eyes sparkled, _"oh my god, it's so cute!"_ She didn't care what it was, it was cute. That's all that mattered to her.

"It's time, I'm adding interest," the little mascot spoke, and the display on the forehead changed from 210 to 231, getting bigger during the process. Confused by this, Gon just stared at the little thing hanging on his shoulder until Knuckle decided to explain the situation.

"I'll lend you that, along with some of my aura," he informed Gon.

"You lent me your aura?" Gon questioned, but to him it made some sense now. Although he got hit by Knuckle earlier on, he didn't feel any pain.

_"He seems like a pretty nice guy," _Himeko thought, _"but I doubt he's doing this for free."_

Knuckle continued his explanation, "but I'm adding ten percent interest."

_"I knew it, but hey, it's not that bad!"_

"Every ten seconds that is," Knuckle finished his sentence off.

_"Ten percent interest every ten seconds?! Why, that stingy son of a bitch!"_

When Knuckle finished his sentence, the white, fluffy mascot spoke again, adding the interest and increasing the number from 231 to 254.

"I forgot to mention, you'll go bankrupt if you don't repay your debt!"

_"That's a sly way to beat you opponent,"_ Himeko thought. If he couldn't beat them, he could just try and hold up until they go bankrupt, although Knuckle hasn't mention what would actually happen if someone were to go bankrupt. Knuckle continued explaining his ability, calling it _'Chapter 7 Bankruptcy', _while the little plushy hanging around Gon was called Amortising Power Redirector, or just APR for short. Gon tried to punch APR to get rid of it, but it flew right back at him unharmed. _"Please don't punch the cute, fluffy thing, Gon."_

Knuckle went on to explain that APR can't be destroyed, "it's both harmless and invincible!" Once again, Gon stared at APR and watched the display go from 254 to 279 this time as it became larger yet again.

_"From your left, Gon!" _While Gon had his eyes on APR, Knuckle used this golden opportunity to attack as Gon was distracted. Himeko's warning was useless as no one could hear her thoughts, and Gon got punched in the face again. Gon didn't seem hurt, just like before he did not feel anything. He instinctively looked back at APR to see 279 increase to 505. _"Why did it suddenly increase by 108?!" _

Himeko wasn't the only one confused by the sudden increase, Gon could only look at Knuckle for an explanation. Knuckle started to explain that everyone has a maximum aura output potential (MOP) which is how much aura is within the individual's body. There is also a limit to how much of it can be used, which then again can be increased through training. This is called the actual aura output potential (AOP).

"When using _Ken_, you can hold up to 1,800 aura around your body, so when preparing for battle the body uses significantly less aura than when in battle. During a battle, when the individual starts to use advanced techniques such as_ Gyo, Ryu, Ken, Shu,_ the amount of aura you spend increases by six to ten times the normal amount spent per second. The stronger your techniques are, the more aura you'll use up, got that?"

Himeko's eyes didn't leave Knuckle for a second while he was explaining his ability, _"this is amazing, he really thought this through. So from now on, I should be more careful using my attacks since they must use up quite a lot of my aura. Gon's jajanken must use up quite a lot too." _When she finally thought of Gon, she looked over to see how he was dealing with all this, only to see him standing there with steam coming out of his ears,_ "Oh, come on! Don't have a memory overload now out of all times!"_

"Your control is still weak, so you spend ten aura per second, making that 600 a minute. Yesterday you only managed to keep up for twenty minutes, so that makes 12,000 aura." Knuckle continued to overload Gon's brain.

_"So 12,000, but he still has to add the jajankens Gon used yesterday."_

"You used four jajankens yesterday, each using just about 2,000 aura, all adding up to 5,500 aura, making it all add up to 17,500. The fourth shot used was Paper instead of Rock, which used up around 4,000 aura. Considering that it was a weak attack and used that much, it must mean that you haven't practiced it much."

_"I see, so if an attack hasn't been practiced a lot, it would use more aura than it should, even if it was weak," _Himeko tried to absorb as much as she could from his explanation, _"Gon is a natural enhancer, but since Paper is a emission technique, it must have required more aura. That means I can't completely rely on my conjuration technique either to fight a whole battle, no matter how much stronger my other attacks are, they will still require less aura because I'm a natural transmuter." _

Knuckle added up all the numbers and came up with Gon's potential aura output power (POP), "In other words your POP is 21,500."

Himeko was still deep in thoughts, until she heard a loud thud coming from Gon's direction. She face-palmed at Gon who was lying half-beaten on the floor with steam still coming out of his ears.

"I did not expect this kind of attack..." he groaned.

Knuckle seemed amused and started laughing at Gon's sudden downfall, "looks like you aren't the best at math, huh?"

_"Gon, this wasn't an attack, please pull yourself together!" _Himeko just couldn't help but feel second hand embarrassment, seeing his friend out cold on the floor because of his opponent's simple additions. Gon eventually stood back on his feet, and Knuckle gave him one last piece of advice. If his loan from Knuckle were to exceed his POP of 17,500 aura, then Gon would go bankrupt. When looking back at APR, the display had already gone up to 1,586 aura in just 120 seconds. _"So in other words, Gon only has around four minutes until he goes bankrupt."_

"What will happen if I go bankrupt?" Gon asked.

"You will be forced into a state of _Zetsu_ for the next thirty days," he replied, "in other words, you won't be able to use _Nen_ for the next month."

_"So if he had used his Hatsu during the past month, Gon would have automatically lost his final match."_

Gon rushes in for a punch, but instead the unharmed Knuckle lands one back at him. If Gon doesn't pay the loan back, he won't be able to hurt Knuckle. Gon kept going, throwing punches at his opponent, but with no success. Knuckle remained unharmed. As time went by, Gon's debt increased yet again, now being over 2,700.

_"If Gon doesn't think of something, he will go bankrupt in a matter of minutes."_

Their fight continued, Gon trying his best to attack as much as he can to reduce his loan without borrowing too much aura from Knuckle. Knuckle on the other hand made sure not to let Gon use his jajanken, interrupting his attack whenever he took the opportunity to charge. In the end, the little time Gon had left went by and the battle came to an end with Gon being fully bankrupt.

It took some time for Himeko to absorb all this, even if Killua won his battle, Gon couldn't use his _Nen_ for the next month making it impossible for him to accompany Netero's team to NGL the next day. Although at some point during the fight this fact became inevitable, Gon still congratulated Knuckle for winning and thanked him properly for not using his ability on him before. He must have been upset about losing his fight in less than ten minutes, but he tried his best not to show it on his face. Knuckle beat him fair and square, and as promised he didn't hold back. He couldn't complain.

Now that there was only one more fight left to see, Himeko wondered whether she could watch another one of her friends lose. She spent a brief moment staring at Gon before standing back up and making her way through the forest, trying to follow the two immense aura's in the middle of the dense forest. It seemed like their fight had already begun.

Upon arrival, she saw Shoot on one end with his aura glowing an unusual green colour, three hands and a small, red cage floating in mid air around him. _"A manipulator?" _She looked over at Killua's end to see him with a pair of silver yo-yos in each hand. _"I've never actually seen him use yo-yos before. When did he learn that?"_

Shoot took the first move, his three floating hands heading straight towards Killua. Using his yo-yos, Killua managed to avoid any sorts of physical contact with those hands, not knowing what kind of after effect they'll have on him. His use of yo-yos managed to amaze both Shoot and Himeko as they flew around in every direction, not leaving space for the hands to go anywhere near him.

The hands stopped moving, and so did Killua's yo-yos. Killua spent a moment waiting for any sort of reaction from his opponent when suddenly, Shoot headed straight towards him. He was taken away by his speed and froze, thinking of how to dodge. He jumped back, wanting to dodge the attack but stopped half way, _"no, I can't keep running away like this. I have to attack." _He started to charge a spark of electricity between his forefinger and thumb, but Shoot didn't back down. He managed to hit Killua in the face, sending him flying back.

_"What is he doing?"_ Himeko mentally cursed, trying to hold back her frustration, _"he's too slow!"_

Shoot seemed to have backed down too, watching Killua finally get back on his feet. He almost felt sorry for hurting him, not wanting to fight him for a moment knowing that something was holding Killua back all this time. However, he quickly shock that feeling off,_ "no, I can't let that bad habit take over. I need to beat him to enter NGL."_

Killua suddenly turns around and starts to run away in the opposite direction, and Shoot didn't waste a second to follow him.

_"What are you doing Killua?!" _This was the second time she had seen him run away from his opponent. The first on Kite's command, and this was the second time. She started heading in their direction, not wanting to lose sight of them, only to discover something about Killua's face. _"His left eye... it's gone." _The area that once had his left eye was now completely dark, just like a black hole. The exact same place he was hit by Shoot.

While running, Killua heard his brother's voice inside his head, telling him to keep running without looking back, telling him that it's useless to fight Shoot, telling him that his opponent is too strong for him. Bisky's voice also started to echo through his mind, reminding him that running away shouldn't be an option and that he should stop overestimating an opponent.

_'If you keep running away like this, you'll leave your friends to die one day' _those words were enough to get Killua to stop running momentarily and turn around. He wanted to keep fighting to prove her wrong, to prove that he could still protect Gon and the others, but then his brother's words destroyed the very little confidence he had.

_'You can't win!__'_

Shoot didn't stop and aimed for another punch, but this time Killua managed to dodge and backed away. Once he was a safe distance away, he tried to touch his left eye, finally noticing that he couldn't see anything through it. "My left eye, it's gone!"

_"It took him too long to notice that his eye was gone," _Himeko thought, _"if he doesn't snap out of it soon, he'll lose!"_

Although he couldn't dodge the first attack, he dodged the second making Shoot wonder whether he sacrificed his left eye to find out what his ability was. Shoot tried again, distracting him with the two floating hands. Killua dodged the attacks once again with the yo-yos.

_"That's it, keep going!" _He was just dodging Shoot's attack, but at least his reaction was better than it was before; or that's what Himeko thought. _"Find an opening to attack, Killua!"_ Blinded by his left eye, he didn't see one of the floating hands come for him from the left, but that was a distraction yet again. Shoot once again attacked him, but Killua dodged that one.

"You reacted quicker this time," Shoot pointed out.

Killua couldn't help but disagree. He wasn't dodging the attacks at all, he was just running away from his enemy. _"I haven't attacked even once, I haven't been fighting at all!"_

Bisky's condition echoed through his head again, _'If you can't defeat Shoot tomorrow, you'll have to leave Gon's side.'_

Killua clenched his fists, digging his nails into the damp soil. His yo-yos broke off and he looked straight at Shoot before heading straight at him, punching the floating hands out of the way.

_"Attaboy!"_ Himeko finally smiled, seeing Killua charge straight at Shoot to attack, but when Shoot dodged, he stopped. _"Keep going, don't stop now."_

Killua started to tremble, looking at Shoot, _"don't stop, keep going after him,"_ he told himself.

_'Don't over-pursue,'_ Illumi's voice ordered.

_"Just go after him already!"_

_'Stop, you can't win.'_

_"Go!"_

_'Go back, give up already!'_

"Why?" Killua asked out loud, confusing his opponent and the bystander. "Why?"

He was frozen stiff, unable to move his muscles by will. Shoot stood there watching him, waiting for him to move. Himeko gave it a quick thought. It was too painful for her to keep watching. She quietly left the scene, not wanting to see the rest of it, knowing the outcome.

On the way back, Himeko couldn't help but be reminded of how she fought. She never knew how frustrating it must have been for anyone watching until she saw for herself. Everything Killua did reminded her of how she used to fight, always being on the defence and never attacking, but Killua seemed far worse. Although she took long to strike back, she would eventually get her thoughts together and find a way out. Killua was the sheer contrast; he just couldn't attack no matter what. It seemed like he wanted to on numerous occasions, but something was holding him back.

_"Bisky was right, there is something wrong with Killua." _It never occurred to her until today, and she could already guess the outcome of the fight. Before she left, Killua was covered in cold-sweat while Shoot wasn't even breaking a sweat. _"So Gon and Killua both lost, we can't go tomorrow."_

Himeko kept walking until she reached a park not too far outside the woods. She took a seat on a bench by a flowerbed and stared into the distance. Although they lost, they put a lot of effort into it. They both worked really hard to get as strong as they were today. Knuckle and Shoot were just stronger. She knew she couldn't do any better than them and felt almost guilty for not being able to do anything to help.

A couple of minutes later, her phone started ringing. It was Gon. She picked up and answered, "Hello?"

"Where are you right now?" Gon asked. Judging by his voice along, she could tell that he called to let her know the results, and tried to drag out the conversation not knowing how to break it to her.

"I'm at a park, I just wanted to take a late night walk," she lied, waiting for Gon to say it. She didn't want to reveal the fact that she was right there watching the two of them, he already sounded disappointed, he would have been a lot more disappointed if she saw him fail. Gon remained quiet before he continued.

"I'm sorry, Kou," he started off, "Killua and I lost. I promised to win, but I failed."

Hearing his voice starting to tremble, he felt helpless. The guilt was starting to stab her. "I should be the one saying sorry," she disagreed, "you and Killua worked so hard all month, and even today you must have fought as hard as you could. I couldn't do anything to help you, I couldn't even stand there and support you two. I'm really sorry, Gon."

"No, you worked hard too. Don't feel bad, we all worked equally as hard, but we were still too weak." Hearing this, Himeko bit her lip trying to hold back her tears, waiting for Gon to continue. "We are going with Knuckle and Shoot to drop them off at the border, we'll pick you up in a bit."

"Yeah."

Gon cut the call, and Himeko put her phone back in her pocket and started to wipe the tears off her face before the others came to pick her up.

* * *

**A/n- **Yay, another update! Wasn't too busy over the weekend and I felt bad for not updating for so long, so I just wrote this chapter over the past few days. And oooooh, the plot is progressing now! And can you guys believe it? This is the 50th chapter! I would have never thought I'd willingly write this much xD

Also, shout out to anyone that spotted the Scream Queens reference. Or maybe no one got the reference because I'm the only one watching that series here...

**Review Corner:**

**SilverDewDrop-** Four kids is way too much for me to handle too xD Just got to somehow convince my friend to think that way too. I've been trying for a while with no success, but I'll get there eventually... I think.

Reading back, I actually liked Shadow Himeko more than Himeko. I feel like Shadow Himeko would have a higher survival chance than Himeko, although they are the same person...

And she liked the idea of the charms, not just the bracelet. You'll see what I mean in a couple of chapters when she starts to use her new ability :D

**Another Cosmology-** The results of her Vows and Limitations will be revealed little by little, but she will use her new abilities pretty soon :)

Meruem was my second favourite ant, mainly because his attachment towards Komugi was so cute. Their relationship progressed at such a good speed, it almost seemed too real. I liked Youpi too, especially his 'fight' with Knuckle and Shoot (more like a game of tag, hence it was hilarious). I'm sure we can all agree on how much we hated Pouf. The number of times I wanted to stuff his violin in his mouth to shut him up... or spray a huge bottle of bug stray at him when he split into those tiny Poufs.

**JokeLover123-** I hope you liked the 'chat'. She briefly touched the Vows and Limitation topic, but it was mostly about Killua. Did anyone expect that? Huh? Huh? I mean lately there were hardly any interactions between them, so I'm guessing no one expected that.

**Jikola-** Lmao, that sounds like a line straight out of a tragic romance movie xD Don't worry, I won't be going anywhere, anytime soon.

Yep, there are quite a lot of characters who can manipulate shadows, like Gekko Moriah (from One Piece) and Tsubasa (from Gakuen Alice) as well as the two you've mentioned, so Sensei's powers aren't that special lol. But yeah, he can just talk to his own shadow when he is alone and bored.

And good question, is Sensei's real name Sensei? Nope, it's not lol. I decided not to reveal Sensei's name because number 1. it will remain a mystery to everyone (including myself) and 2. I thought about it, and since I've included a lot of OCs in this fic I figured it would be much easier for everyone to just remember Sensei as Sensei. Even if I were to give him a name, the characters would still refer to him as 'Sensei' so if I go back and forth mentioning his name and his title separately, people might get confused. If you want, you can just make up a name for him and let me know because I don't think I'm planning to do that anytime soon.


	51. Killua's Struggles

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 51**

_Killua's struggles_

_..._

Leaving the city after midnight, it took a couple of hours to reach the borders of NGL. The journey was fairly quiet; a complete contrast to the first time travelling to NGL. Some managed to catch some sleep, mainly Kite's expedition team who came to pick them up. Others couldn't catch a wink of sleep, three thinking about their loss and the other two thinking about their upcoming mission. Eventually the sun started to rise, letting some rays into the vehicle through the windows and waking the sleepers up. The giant trees came into sight and the driver let them know that they'd be arriving in just a matter of minutes.

The vehicle came to a hold and one by one everyone got out. Knuckle and Shoot started heading towards the entrance, and Gon, Killua and Himeko followed wanting to send them off to the properly. While walking closer towards the trees, they saw that two people were already waiting there. Once they got close enough, they were able to identify the pair. Once the two spotted the latecomers, they waved at them. Seeing them wave, Himeko unconsciously rushed past Shoot who was leading the way towards the entrance.

"Natsume, Toshiro!" She stopped once she realised that she hadn't had anything to say to them. She wanted to tell them about her month and Sensei's intense training methods, but for some reason she just felt disappointed knowing that she wasn't strong enough to go in there instead of them.

"Is something wrong?" Toshiro asked. The pair seemed slightly different from how they were before they went off to train, they looked much more confident. Natsume didn't even have much time to cut his hair that was now longer than he usually kept it. His strawberry blonde hair was long enough for some of it to be tied up into a half ponytail, while Toshiro didn't seem like he had much time to himself either. Haruko was the only one that always had a stubble, but the other two just liked to shave their facial hair off, but Toshiro too had a stubble now. Although Himeko wasn't sure how the two trained, she knew that they must have trained much harder than she did.

Himeko shook her head, "just, I wanted to know when you two arrived. It's surprising to see Natsume here so early."

"I arrived nearly half an hour ago," Toshiro informed her, "Natsume only came ten minutes ago."

"Ah, I see," she smiled awkwardly. Following their small talk, Knuckle and Shoot both greeted their two team members joining them on the mission while the other three just stared in silence. Their talk didn't last too long, they had to be on their way soon. After all, they had to dedicate their full concentration on defeating the ants now that they were involved. But before they could leave, Gon stopped them. He wanted to have one last word with them; at least with Knuckle.

"Knuckle," he called him with a slight desperation in his voice. He couldn't go back to NGL, and neither could Himeko or Killua. In the end, he had to ask the last person he could rely on to do him a favour. Knuckle turned around and looked at him, waiting for Gon to continue. He somehow had a feeling what Gon was going to ask, but nonetheless, he wanted to let him finish. "I want you to do me a favour. I want you to find Kite and save him."

His voice was filled with desperation, disappointment, frustration and self pity. He was angry at himself, angry at how weak he still was despite all the training he had done. He disappointed Kite who would still be waiting for him to come back, and he disappointed Ging for not being able to help his pupil. Without him even realising, all those emotions couldn't be kept in anymore and were let out, streaming down his face as warm tears. The happy-go-lucky Gon was no more, now that he knew what it felt like to lose someone so close to him. Instead he was left wondering why he couldn't go in Knuckle's and Shoot's place, and why he wasn't strong enough to save Kite.

Killua watched his friend break down for the first time, and for Gon to be filled with such defeat he couldn't even begin to imagine how broken he was. Throughout the Hunter exam, training at Heaven's arena, the battle at Yorkshin City and the events in Greed Island, Gon just continued to grow stronger showing no weakness and even risking his own arm to win a fight. It shouldn't even be much of a surprise to him, Gon is only human and a mental breakdown was only natural, yet it shocked him. He cried, he cried knowing how weak it felt to be the complete losers Morel called them a month ago. He cried knowing how much this must be affecting Gon. He cried knowing that he couldn't do anything to help his friend.

"I promise," he said giving Gon a firm nod. Knuckle turned around, and along with Shoot he walked towards the entrance to the borders. Toshiro and Natsume were going to join them after saying their goodbyes to Himeko. However, Himeko's attention was solely fixed on Gon, almost as if she was crying with him; or rather like she was crying for him. Natsume looked at Toshiro, wondering what they should do next. Toshiro did nothing. She wasn't even crying for herself, so he couldn't tell her to stop crying. At moments like this, it was better to just let them cry it all out so they could get their heads straight again. But that didn't change the fact that the pair had to join Knuckle and Shoot on the mission, and they had to get going too.

Natsume lightly shook her by her shoulders to snap her out of it, "Kou!" Himeko turned around and looked at them, "Toshi and I have to get going too now."

"Don't worry, we'll bring Kite back somehow," Toshiro assured her, loud enough for Gon and Killua to hear too.

Himeko nodded, "yeah, take care," she said half heartedly. The pair honestly didn't expect much more from her and were getting reading to leave, "come back home safely, Sensei wants you two to clean your room." The two boys stopped walking and looked back at her. "I'm serious, I'm not cleaning that room for you, neither am I doing your dirty laundry Natsume, your socks stink! So you two better come back!" Natsume and Toshiro flashed a confident smile before they continued to move along.

Eventually, Knuckle, Shoot, Natsume and Toshiro were out of sight, but Gon and the others couldn't stop staring at the entrance to the borders, everyone still in tears. "Is this what it feels like to be weak?" Gon questioned the others, who could only watch him in silence. "Why do I feel so helpless, not being able to help Kite?"

"Gon..." Himeko was speechless, having no words to encourage him. Seeing this, Montas called the three so they could head back for now. Although Gon was a little reluctant to leave at first, there was nothing left for him to do now that he couldn't use Nen anymore. He gave in and eventually entered the vehicle at the back, and was joined by Himeko and Killua.

Killua and Himeko had already stopped crying, but Gon still sat down with his head between his knees. In contrast to them, Spin who was sitting at the back with them didn't seem worried at all. As per usual, she was chewing on a piece of gum while reading a magazine. Hearing quiet sniffling noises coming from Gon's side, she looked up once in a while and shut her magazine when she had enough.

"Okay, I've had enough!" She interrupted. "Are you going to stop crying already? Kite won't die so easily."

Kite was one of the most talented Hunters Gon had ever met, and he was just reminded of it again by Spin. He momentarily stopped crying to listen, and Spin started telling the three about the time she first met Kite. All the Amateur Hunters that joined Kite's team are indebted to him in one way or another, and they all aspired to grow up to become a Hunter just like him. After spending so much time with Kite, they were unfazed by the fact that Kite went missing for this long; they were all sure that Kite would still be alive.

It didn't take much to convince Gon, and he finally found some new determination. Instead of just sitting there waiting for news from Knuckle and the others to arrive, he should be doing something more productive. Seeing Gon in a much better mood managed to brighten up the mood in the van. Until Kite comes back, Gon decided to train and become stronger so Kite would be proud seeing him.

...

Kite's team of Hunters eventually dropped them off at their apartment around noon time, and Gon, Killua and Himeko got off. After bidding the team a farewell, they turned around to face the apartment. It could be because Gon was in a good mood now that he completely forgot about the crazy woman still inside the building. Gon marched in with no second thought and Killua was about to follow, but Himeko stopped him, feeling a dark, eerie aura coming from inside, sending chills down her spine.

"Aren't we completely forgetting about something?" She asked him.

Killua looked up at the windows. The curtains were still closed. "I think we are..."

"Didn't Gon make some sort of promise, promising to swallow one thousand needles if he were to break it?"

"Yeah," Killua nodded, "but I'm sure it's just a figure of speech."

"Are you sure?"

"No." The pair speed walked behind Gon, trying to catch up to him and warn him before he opened the door. "Gon, are you sure we should be going back?"

"Why not?" Gon asked, reaching inside his pocket to get the key out. He reassured his two friends, "Don't worry about Palm, I'll talk to her."

Killua turned to Himeko, "he'll talk to Palm apparently," he whispered.

"You two talk it out with her, I'll go back to the front door and stand guard outside," she told him, "there is a market outside, want me to buy you some oranges too?" The two boys blankly stared at her. "Apples then? Blueberries? Ooh, I wonder if blueberries are in season! I'll go and have a look, you two just have fun inside. Bye!"

Himeko was about to turn around and walk back outside, but Killua grabbed her by the collar of her t-shirt to stop her from escaping. He then turned to Gon, "go on, open the door. We are right behind you!"

"The blueberries!" Himeko protested.

"Stay still washboard, the blueberries aren't going to run away!"

"But they will sell out if I don't hurry!" She pointed out, "and don't call me washboard!"

Hearing Killua and Himeko argue, Gon just sighed and shook his head before proceeding to open the front door. "Let's go, you two." Gon led the way into the apartment, with Killua dragging Himeko right behind him making sure she doesn't manage to escape. As the trio enters the living room, they find Palm in a corner stabbing what seemed to be a doll that looked exactly like Gon. Hearing three sets of footsteps walk towards her, she stopped stabbing the Gon doll and turned around to look at the real thing.

"Okay, we have a couple of seconds to escape," Himeko informed her two friends, hoping they'd change their minds, "let's make the most of those precious seconds and run while we still have the chance to."

"No, we'll stay!" Gon said firmly, looking straight at Palm. Not too soon after Gon spoke, Palm dropped the Gon doll she was holding and rushed towards the real thing, pointing the recently sharpened knife at him.

"You!" She hissed, gripping the knife tightly, "you broke your promise!"

"I'm sorry for breaking the promise, Palm." He apologised lowering his head slightly. He waited a while for Palm to response, but only a snicker escaped her lips.

"You said you'd swallow one thousand needles if you broke your promise," Palm reminded him, bringing the knife closer to Gon's face.

"That was just a figure of speech," Himeko pointed out, "he didn't actually mean it, no one swallows a thousand needles after breaking promises!"

Palm looked up at Himeko standing behind Killua, "silence!" She hissed at her, threatening her with the knife. Himeko took a couple of steps back towards the front door, but was pulled back by Killua.

"Be quiet, unless you want to become a dead washboard!" Killua warned.

"Killua... washboards are inanimate objects..." Himeko pointed out.

"Shut it!"

Gon continued to apologise to her, "I'm sorry, I'll do whatever you want." This offer didn't seem that bad to Palm at all, and it managed to catch her full interest.

"Anything?" She asked, her eyes shining brightly with excitement.

"He shouldn't have said that," Killua whispered over to Himeko.

Himeko nodded quietly, "wanna bet that it's going to be something ridiculous?"

Before they could start betting on what Palm was going to request from Gon, she had already made it, "I want you to go on a date with me," she told him, making Killua and Himeko choke on their own saliva.

"What?!" Himeko screamed in disbelief.

"No!" Killua added, before turning to Gon, "Gon, you don't have to do what she says. That's just going overboard now!"

Gon however didn't back down, "Okay, I'll go on a date with you," he agreed with no second thought, making Himeko and Killua face palm. "But not today," he continued, "I want to train with Killua and Kou today before Kite comes back."

"You just said you'll go on a date with me!" Palm gritted her teeth in annoyance. "Why not today?! I won't allow you to break your promise twice!" Palm then shot a glare at both Killua and Himeko standing behind Gon, watching everything, "why do they always have to ruin everything?!"

"I'm not breaking the promise, I didn't mean to imply that I didn't want to go on a date with you Palm," Gon explained in a calm tone, "it's our first date, so I figured that it should be special."

Hearing those words, Palm's harsh tone of talking disappeared and she dropped her knife on the floor, reverting back to what a elementary schooler would act like around their crush. "F-first d-date?" she asked, stuttering as she fiddled with her fore fingers. Gon gave her his usual bright smile, nodding to reassure her that he was telling the truth this time. Now that Palm's face was flushed pink, she tried to calm herself down, muttering incoherent words and covering her cheeks so no one could see her red face. Killua and Himeko watched the scene in awe as the woman in her mid twenties acted like a ten year old, while Gon maturely watched as if this was nothing out of the ordinary.

"Damn, Gon is smooth..." Himeko commented, only loud enough for Killua to hear.

Killua couldn't help but agree with her, "tell me about it..." he nodded.

Once Palm seemed to have calmed down, Gon turned around to look at his two friends. "Shall we get going?" He asked. "There is a gym nearby, since I can't use my _Nen_ for a month I figured that we could go and train there. Killua checked and apparently it's really cheap for children."

"Ah," when Gon talked about training, Himeko remembered something important, "I actually wanted to continue training my _Nen_. I need a lot of space for it, so I'll pass."

"It's okay, Killua and I'll go then." Gon seemed a little disappointed at first. Himeko was being quite secretive about her training for the past month, and neither Gon nor Killua knew how much progress she made. Unlike Bisky, Sensei had also started to take her out to train in more spacious places, so they didn't know how much she improved. It made them a little curious. Himeko on the other hand kept track on how much stronger the two had gotten, so she wasn't really curious about their progress.

Nonetheless, the trio parted their ways once again with Gon and Killua heading towards the gym and Himeko going to the training space Gon and Knuckle used previously. Himeko continued to train her new _Nen _over the hours hoping to make some sorts of improvement on it. Although she couldn't go back to NGL, she still wanted to keep improving her new technique, knowing it would come in handy some day in the future. She had all the time in the world to work on it, yet she felt as if she would need it sooner than everyone expected. Gon and Killua on the other hand focused more on their physical training, lifting weights at the gym and getting the attention of a couple of bodybuilders who were impressed to see such tiny humans being able to lift more than them.

A few hours later, Himeko decided to take a break from her training, only to receive a phone call at such an odd hour. She figured that it could be Gon, or Gon calling from Killua's phone, or Killua calling to insult her, or even Palm calling to ask her where Gon was, and whether he was surrounded by any girls, but it was none of the above. She was surprised to see a call from Natsume's phone out of all people, the same Natsume that should have entered NGL in the morning. If it was a call from them, it must have been some major news. She wasted no time to pick the call up.

"Hello?" she answered, "Natsu, is everything okay? What happened?"

"Woah, woah, woah," Natsume interrupted her, trying to get her to calm down and take a couple of breathers, "we have news for you. We found Kite!" For a moment, Himeko's mind went blank. All this wait finally seemed to have paid off now that they got some good news after so long, but before she was about to ask him how Kite was doing, and whether he was fine, Natsume continued in a more serious tone, "don't get your hopes up too high though, he's being controlled by the enemy."

"But he is in one piece, right?" She blurted out, "he's alive, right?"

"Yeah, we just need to figure out a way to return him to normal. We are heading back with him now, we'll be there by tomorrow evening, or maybe the day after."

Himeko let out a sigh of relief, "finally, some good news after so long. Thank you so much, thank Toshi, Knuckle and Shoot for me too!"

"Will do, see you later then!"

"Yeah, see ya!"

After cutting the call, Himeko seemed to have found some new determination to continue her training. She stood up, but her phone started ringing once again. She looked at the caller ID; it was from Gon.

"Hel-"

"Kou, guess what!" Before Himeko could even properly answer the phone, Gon beat her to it with his overly excited, loud voice. "They found Kite! Knuckle and the others found Kite," Gon felt the need to repeat the fact that Knuckle and the others found Kite twice to be completely satisfied. Himeko guessed that while Natsume informed her, Knuckle called him.

"I heard, Natsu just called me!"

"He said Kite is alive, they'll be back soon." Gon continued telling her, although he already knew that she received the same information as him. "We'll be able to see Kite again!"

"Yeah."

"I just called to you to let you know, I'm running some errands for tomorrow so I'll see you later."

"Yep, see ya!"

Later that day, Himeko thought it was about time to head back home. It was quite dark outside already, but on the way home she could hear the sound of a couple of sirens in the distance. The area they were staying in was usually quite peaceful, there were hardly that many crimes, but the fact that there was a crime taking place wasn't much of a surprise either. After all, criminals aren't bound to one place and liked to cause trouble wherever they went. When she got home, she could hear the TV. She peeked into the kitchen while walking into the living room, seeing Palm preparing dinner while humming an unfamiliar tune straight out of a horror movie. She seemed to be in a good mood, most likely because of the date she was going to go on the very next day. In the living room, Killua was sitting alone in front of the TV watching the news.

"Yo," she greeted him, noticing that he was too intrigued by whatever was in the news.

Killua turned to look at her, "ah, you are back. How did training go?" He asked, before turning back to look at the TV.

"Good," she replied, "where is Gon?"

"Bathroom."

"Taking a bath?"

"Hmm."

Killua's responses got shorter and shorter each time, and out of curiosity Himeko went over and sat next to him to see what he was watching. It seemed to breaking news, involving the murder of a couple of people all in the same area by the same individual. "Isn't that close to this town?" Himeko asked.

Killua turned around again, noticing that her voice was much closer than it was before. Seeing her so close startled him, "h-hey, did you have to sit so close to me?" Himeko analysed the distance between them, only to find that he was over exaggerating. She wasn't sitting that close to him at all. Then she remember that she just came back from training, and took a quick sniff from her clothes.

"Do I really smell that much?" She asked him, "I didn't even train as much as I usually do, so I don't think I smell as bad."

"Forget it!" Killua huffed before moving down a little. Himeko couldn't help but feel offended, wondering whether she smelt bad enough for him to move away. He turned back back to look at the TV, "just warn me the next time you sit next to me."

"Don't worry about me, it's not like I'm offended or anything," Himeko muttered sarcastically, obviously offended by the fact that Killua asked her to move away.

"That happened quite close to here," Killua stated, referring to the news telecast, "I have a feeling it was a work of an ant."

"An ant?" Himeko turned to the TV again, and looked at some of the disturbing pictures taken from the crime scene. Most of the pictures were censored, but even so they could see how brutally the victims were murdered. "You're right, no ordinary human could cause damage like that."

"Gon is going out tomorrow. He can't use _Nen_."

"You are worried, aren't you?"

"Hmm." Himeko wanted to use this opportunity to confront Killua about the deal he made with Bisuit, but just when she was about to open her mouth to question him, the door to the bathroom suddenly opened and Gon stepped out, drying his hair. Killua switched the TV off as soon as Gon exited the bathroom.

"Oh Kou, you are back!" Gon greeted her. He noticed the pair sitting in front of the switched off TV, "what are you two doing?"

"We were watching some TV," Himeko answered him.

Before Himeko could continue, Killua interrupted, "she put on some cheesy movie, so I switched it off when the commercials came on. Don't worry too much about it, just girls stuff she made me watch."

_"Excuse me?"_

"I see," Gon hummed, "by the way, what are you two going to do tomorrow?"

"We decided to go and train at the gym," Killua answered.

"You are?" Gon asked.

"We are?" Himeko also questioned him, only to get a glare shot at her telling her to play along, "oh, yeah! These muscles aren't going to tone themselves," she laughed nervously. She looked over at Killua, only to see him face palming at her lack of common sense. That was a close call, or that's at least what she thought. Gon seemed to have bought it somehow, it wasn't too surprising after all. All three of them did want to continue training, so it was only natural for those two to want to continue their training even if Gon was taking the day off.

"The bathroom is free, so you can use it if you want to," Gon pointed out. "I already filled the tub for you."

"Ah, thanks! According to Killua I seriously need a shower."

Wondering why Killua complained, Gon took in a couple of sniffs, "you don't smell that bad."

"I know right!" she couldn't help but agree with him. "I smelt worse when I had to go through Sensei's training, but according to Killua I stink."

"Killua, that's pretty mean!"

"I never said anything about her smelling bad," Killua interrupted their conversation, "I just told her to warn me before sitting so close to me."

"Weirdo," Himeko commented, sticking her tongue out at him. Killua responded by making a face to mock her in return. Gon couldn't help but laugh, now that the two of them were acting like they usually did.

...

Once Himeko was done taking a bath, she changed into a new set of pjs. After dinner, everyone took turns brushing their teeth and getting ready for bed before finally calling it a night. With Biscuit gone, Himeko had to share her room with just Palm now. She would usually mind her own business, but that didn't stop Himeko from wondering when Palm would snap and pull a knife out from her bedside table. With the lights switched off, Himeko thought she could finally catch up on some sleep, knowing that Killua was planning to take her along to stalk Gon and Palm on their date. But from the bed next to hers, she could hear creaking sounds from Palm turning every few minutes, not being able to sleep.

"Himeko?" She called her, but Himeko tried to ignore her and go to sleep. "Kou? Kou? Kou? Kou?"

Eventually, Himeko gave in and turned around to face Palm. "What do you want?"

"I don't think I can sleep, I'm too excited," Palm squealed like a sixteen year old high school girl. "Can I tell you a bedtime story?"

"Shouldn't _I_ be telling _you_ the bedtime story so _you_ can go to bed?"

"No, I have a better bedtime story!"

"Okay, go on then!" Himeko eventually gave in, "as long as you go to sleep and let me sleep, I'm fine."

"It's based on a true story, and my grandmother used to tell me this all the time," Palm started off. "In the village I was from, there was this all boys high school. Rumours had it that a couple of decades ago, a good looking boy was driven into suicide by his fellow classmates out of jealousy. The boy had good looks, was popular among the teachers and also had good grades. He was bullied, and eventually hung himself in the last stall of the boys toilet on the second floor. After the event, one by one students went missing, only to be discovered dead in the same stall as the young boy. Apparently, if you enter the last stall of the toilet on the second floor of that building, you could hear the voice of a young boy asking you, 'do you want red paper, or do you want blue paper?'."

Himeko gulped listening to the story, _"I don't like where this is going! Is she certain that this is a bedtime story, and not a campfire story?"_

Although Himeko face was turning pale at this point, and loud gulping was heard from her, Palm continued, "If the student chose red paper, the ghost of the boy would appear and cut the students throat, leaving red puddles of blood in the stall. If the student were to chose blue paper, the ghost of the boy would appear and strangle his victim, leaving the body blue. To this day, students go missing whenever they enter that stall."

"T-t-t-that's i-i-it?" Himeko stuttered out, "i-i-s the-there a-anything else?"

"No, that's all!" Palm answered, "Good night!"

Palm quietly turned around to face the wall, now being able to sleep peacefully, but Himeko on the other hand was busy making sure that her whole body was under the blanket just in case something emerged from under the bed and pulled her out. Palm's voice telling the story echoed through her head over and over again, and Himeko found herself watching the minutes tick by on the clock in front of her, not being able to get a wink of sleep. To make it even worse, she now had a sudden need to go to the toilet thanks to Palm but didn't want to risk getting killed by the toilet ghost. Five minutes past, ten, twenty, thirty, and eventually and hour went by. She couldn't keep this up for the whole night, otherwise her bladder would burst, and wetting the bed at her age would be beyond embarrassing.

Eventually, she had enough. Ghosts are nothing compared to Hisoka, and some of the Phantom Troupe members, so maybe she was over exaggerating this all. She slowly got out of the bed, and one small step at a time made her way out of the room. She stood still at the door before getting her courage together and opening the door, and to her surprise she wasn't the only one still awake at that time.

Hearing Palm's and Himeko's bedroom door creak open, Killua who was sitting in the living room, turned to look who was still awake at this hour, only to see a really happy Himeko smiling right at him.

"Do me a favour Killua!" She exclaimed. Killua would have never guessed that she would ever be this happy to see him. "While I go to the toilet, stand guard outside for me."

Slightly flustered by her sudden request, Killua tried to keep his voice down as Gon and Palm were still asleep, "what?! Why would I want to come to the toilet with you?"

"The toilet paper ghost! He's going to ask me whether I want blue toilet paper of red toilet paper, and then he's going to kill me."

Killua took a moment to absorb what she had just said, not too surprised by it. "Who now?"

"The toilet paper ghost!" She repeated once again, hoping he would understand, "I'm just telling you to stand guard outside the toilet, I'm not telling you to come inside with me."

Once again, Killua got flustered, "I never said anything about coming inside the toilet with you."

"Neither did I," Himeko added, now almost desperate to go and empty her bladder, "please, I really need to pee!" Before he could agree to her request, Himeko took matters into her own hands and dragged Killua along, leaving him outside the bathroom, going inside, locking the door and doing her business, leaving Killua dumbfounded once again. There was a brief silence between the two before Himeko casually started a conversation from inside the bathroom, "so, you couldn't sleep either?" She asked.

Killua was slightly surprised by the fact that she started a conversation so casually from inside the toilet, especially since that was probably one of the most unlady like things to do. Nonetheless he answered her, "no, I'm guessing you couldn't either."

"I was about to," Himeko replied, "but Palm said she wanted to tell me a bedtime story and ended up telling me a ghost story instead."

"That explains a lot."

"She fell asleep straight away," Himeko continued to explain her agony, "but I was too paranoid to close my eyes just in case something came and attacked me from under the bed. Thank god you were still awake!" The sound of the toilet flushing could then be heard, followed by the sound of water running down the tap, "I'm nearly done, just washing my hands," she informed him.

"Nice to know," Killua replied in a sarcastic voice. The sound of the water rushing down stopped, and the door unlocked. Killua stepped away from the door so Himeko could exit.

"Thanks!" She smiled at him, "that reminds me, I wanted to ask you something while we were watching the news today. Just give me a couple of minutes!"

Killua watched her walk into the kitchen and switching the lights on, before she reached for some of the mugs in the upper cupboards. Seeing how it would take some time for her to return, Killua decided to go back to living room and sit down on the floor again, going back to think about the things he was thinking about before Himeko interrupted him with her dilemma. For now, there was just one thought in his head; protecting Gon until he gets his abilities back.

"I'm going to sit down next to you, so don't freak out, okay?" Killua's thoughts were once again interrupted by Himeko, who this time for Killua's sake gave him a warning before sitting down besides him. She handed him one of the two mugs of warm milk she was holding, "here, this might help you sleep!"

Her sudden acts of kindness was starting to creep Killua out, not to mention the sudden peace offering. He wondered whether there was something in it, but then he remembered that he was immune to poison. He waited for her to start drinking from her mug before joining her. It didn't take long for Himeko to finish all of her milk and set her red mug aside. She stretched her arms a little before getting into a much more comfortable position to initiate her talk.

"So, how is life?" She asked him.

"Good," Killua answered her, slightly confused by the weird question, "that aside, why is your nightie so short. Wear something that comes up to your knees at least."

"Nightie?" Himeko asked, before looking down at her pjs, "oh, this? It's just a t-shirt that ended up with my laundry, so I took it. Finder's keeper! It's not like anyone notices their things going missing anyway, except for maybe Toshi but it's fine as long as you hide his things from him."

"At least sit properly in that case," Killua ordered, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor.

"Don't worry, I'm wearing pyjama shorts underneath them, so I'm safe!" She grinned proudly, "look, my shorts even have my initials on them. Isn't that cool? It even has a mini tiara on the side!"

"Don't!" Killua stopped her before she could show off her shorts, "I believe you, you don't have to show me! Have some shame!"

"They are just regular shorts, like the ones I've been wearing for the past couple of weeks!"

"Never mind, just tell me what you wanted to talk to me about."

Himeko took a breath before she started talking. To Killua, it seemed like a sensitive topic and she didn't exactly know how she should approach him about it. Neither did she know whether Killua would be comfortable telling her about it.

"You know, I sometimes feel really scared when fighting someone I don't know much about. The fact that they could be a lot stronger than me just frightens me," she started off, "when training with Sensei, I spent so many days just running away from him, knowing that he was stronger than me. Heck, I even ran away from my own shadow knowing she was stronger than me too. I've never liked losing, I've become too scared of losing against someone else. Maybe it was just a pride thing, but whatever it was, I thought that running away was much better than losing. I never realised that running away was a lot more cowardly than losing until Morel-san pointed it out. I became almost desperate to change it, but somehow I still kept running away unconsciously, as if it became some sort of habit. Do you know what I mean?"

Killua quietly listened to her, and took a moment to think about it. He knew exactly what she meant, "I see where you are coming from."

"I don't know what Sensei said to me, but somehow he managed to sort me out. It doesn't matter whether he was stronger than me or now, whatever challenges he gave me, I always managed to overcome. I can feel that I became a whole lot stronger than I was before, and I know I was able to do it because I put my mind to it. I'm sure anyone can do it if someone like me can." Killua felt like that was targeted at him. "Bisky told me about the deal you two made."

_"I should've guessed,"_ he thought.

"Are you really going to leave Gon?"

Killua didn't want to tell her the truth, knowing how she'd react, but he couldn't lie to her either since she knew about it know. "Once Gon gets his _Nen_ back, I'll leave him. There is nothing much I can do about it, it's a promise I made Bisky and I have to keep it. I'm going to protect him until then."

"How are you going to tell him?"

"I don't know yet, I'm not even sure whether I'm going to tell him." He admitted, "knowing him, he'll mope around for a while, but I'm sure he'll understand eventually. Gon is stubborn, but if it's a promise he'll understand eventually."

"Where do you plan on going afterwards?"

"I'm not sure, but I guess I'll find something to do eventually. I could always go somewhere and train, find a way to become stronger. I'll be busy trying to stay away from Illumi, I know that he's going to try and take me back home somehow, so I can't stay at one place for too long. I could go and join a team of Hunters, and try to save up money for the future," Killua was trying hard to think of things to do once he leaves Gon. But for some reason, it was much harder than he initially thought. For now, all Killua thought he would do was help Gon find Ging, but he couldn't do that anymore. "You'll be going off to find your brother after this, right? I could help you do that, but somehow I feel like Bisky wanted me to become strong enough to protect all of my friends, not just Gon. In that case, I might have to leave you too."

At some point, Killua heard no response coming from Himeko and checked up to see what she was up to. _"Would you look at this, I'm sitting here talking and she just fell asleep,"_ Killua scoffed, looking at at Himeko who was sound asleep next to him with her head buried in her knees. _"Great, she isn't just sleeping. She is snoring too now!"_

Since Himeko was the one offering to have the 'heart-to-heart' conversation, Killua couldn't help but feel a bit offended by the fact that she fell asleep as soon as he started talking. Then he looked over at the empty mug beside her. Milk and honey, a combination that could make most people fall asleep, but Killua was an exception to the rule. After all, that boy could stay awake for three whole days while Himeko was the sheer opposite of him. If she didn't get sleep for a day, she would just fall asleep on the spot. After he figured that she wouldn't wake up any time soon, Killua sighed and gathered both of their mugs before taking them away to the kitchen and placing them in the sink for someone to wash in the morning. He obviously didn't want to be the one washing the cups, since Himeko made the milk, she should clean the mugs up herself. Once he was done, he returned to see whether Himeko had any signs of consciousness to her. She was still asleep, so he tried lightly tapping her shoulders to see whether she would wake up without making a big fuss. It was past midnight and the last thing he wanted to do was wake up everyone. If Palm found out, she would tell the whole world, including old fashioned Sensei who would give both of them a good whooping since a girl and a boy shouldn't be together 'at this time of night'. Bisky on the other hand would call him every day just to tease the hell out of him.

"Hey, wake up," Killua continued to lightly shake her by her shoulders, trying to get her to wake up. However, tapping her shoulders just made it worse and she started to lean towards the left and eventually fell over, leaving Killua face palming.

_"Should I just leave her here?" _He asked himself. No matter how tempting that sounded, he had to consider the fact that the old hag would tear his head apart if he found out about it. Also, if she caught a cold from sleeping out in the living room, she wouldn't be able to train the her fullest. But then again, idiots don't catch colds so Killua had to keep that in mind too. Then, his thoughts were interrupted when he heard her talk in her sleep.

"I'm sorry, Killua," she mumbled quietly. Killua had never heard her voice this quiet, let alone did he ever think her voice could go this quiet.

_"What is she apologising for all of the sudden,"_ he asked himself. As far as he remembered, she hadn't caused much mischief lately due to all the training they were doing. The fact that she was apologising was surprising enough too; Killua always thought of her as too prideful to even say sorry to someone. "Why are you apologising," he asked curiously, hoping she'd answer in her sleep.

"I accidentally ate your chocolate bar the other day and blamed it on Gon," Himeko continued to mutter.

_"I fucking knew it!" _Killua mentally cursed at her now that he finally knew the real culprit of the missing chocolate case. However, Killua couldn't help but grow interested. She seemed to be more truthful about things in her sleep than she is when she's conscious. He could easily get her to say all her dirty little secrets with her own mouth with no effort at all. This was something he could seriously get used to.

He wanted to give it another go, "what about back in Yorkshin?"

"I found the chocolate bar lying around and shared it with Gon."

"The spicy chocolate at the airport?"

"That was all my idea, I just asked Gon to keep quiet about it."

"Okay, I need you to say 'Killua is the best' for me," Killua waited curiously to see whether she was actually going to obey.

"Killua is the best!"

A mischievous grin formed on his face as he got out his cellphone ready to record some things, "repeat that once more."

"I don't wanna!"

"Just one last time with the most honest sounding voice you can say it in," Killua tried convincing her again.

"Killua is the best!"

_"And, recorded!" _He smiled to himself in victory, _"do I feel bad for taking advantage of her sleeping habit? Not at all! But maybe I should stop now before being labeled as a pervert." _It did seem like a real shame to leave her like that now that he could get all sorts of juicy gossips out of her, so he wanted to try asking one more question. "Hey, do you perhaps like someone?"

"Uh huh."

"Do I know that person?"

"Yeah."

"Who is it?" Killua gulped, anticipating her response.

"Killua," she mumbled, making him tense up at the sound of his name. But he managed to calm down once she was able to complete her response, "you shouldn't ask me personal questions when I'm asleep."

Killua tired to check whether she was actually asleep, or just pretending. If she was conscious, she wouldn't have answered the questions like he wanted her to, but maybe she woke up due to him creating a ruckus. However, she was still out cold. He tried waving his hand in front of her face, but there was no response from her. She must still be asleep that meant. He then started to think about all the possible ways to carry her back inside the room.

_"It'll be embarrassing carrying her in my arms, so let's not even think about it."_ He then started thinking again. _"I can't piggy back her inside since she will fall off if she doesn't hold on."_

It was time for Killua to use his imagination and think of all possible ways to complete Mission Impossible : Carry this brat back inside her room unnoticed. _"I can try and carry her over my shoulders..." _He took a few moments to imagine the scenario and quickly found himself frantically shaking his head at the idea. _"That just looks like I'm kidnapping her."_

He kept thinking and looked at her legs, trying to imagine how it would turn out to drag her inside by her leg. He shut his eyes and imagined the scenario, _"That just looks like I'm trying to get rid of a corpse."_

After he was finally out of options, he sighed and opted for the most sane one of them all. In order to carry her inside without dropping her or causing a scene, he had to go for option one: carrying her in his arms.

Killua bent down beside her and took in a deep breath before picking her up. He was surprised by her weight. Being the glutton she is, he always imagined her to weight a lot more than she looked, or at least as much as him. Now that he was taking a much closer look at her, she was a lot smaller than he had always thought. Maybe it was because of the fact that he always called her _Washboard_, or _Gorilla woman_, he completely forgot that Himeko had been a girl since day one, no matter how boyish and shameless she acted. _"She is lighter than I expected, and a lot smaller too." _For some reason, Killua just seemed very intrigued now that he is seeing her in a completely different light. _"Her eyelashes are quite long too, she actually looks kinda cute when she is sleeping. Maybe she just seems cuter now that she isn't talking. __She actually isn't flat now that I look closer. She is still flat, but not as flat as I thought. Wait, what am I even thinking, she is flat but she isn't flat at the same time. I'm not even making any sense right now! Why am I even looking there?! What the hell is wrong with me?!"_

"Killua, what are you doing in the middle of the night?" Killua jumped as he heard a sleepy voice behind him. He turned around and flashed a nervous smile as he saw Gon yawning and rubbing his eyes. "Why are you carrying Kou?"

"Shh!" Killua shushed him, "Be quiet, Palm's going to wake up!"

"Why did you take Kou out of room at this time?" Gon asked.

"I didn't!"

"Then why is she asleep in your arms?" Inspector Gon started interrogating, not realising that if Palm were to wake up now, both of them would get in trouble.

"She went to the toilet and then we talked since I couldn't sleep. Then she just fell asleep on the spot and I'm trying to get her into her room without Palm waking up," Killua explained.

"Do you want me to help you?" Gon asked.

"Yes!" Killua answered in an annoyed tone. "And you can start by shutting up!"

All of the sudden, Himeko moved, startling both of the boys this time.

_"I'm going to get a heart attack if something else happens!" _Killua thought. As if it was preplanned, Himeko let out a quiet chuckle, probably dreaming about something funny; or it might just be a weird sleeping habit. There is sleep talking, sleep walking, so just add sleep laughing to the list! _"Why is she giggling? Does this seem funny to her? Wait, is she awake and purposely trying to put me on the spot? What's next, is she going to hit me in her sleep?" _Responding to his thoughts, Himeko lifted both her arm and lightly kicked her leg, both hitting Killua's face. Although Killua was getting fed up with this, Gon just stared at the sleeping Himeko in awe. "What are you staring at Gon?!" Killua asked in a slightly irritated tone. All odds were against him right now.

"It's just that Kou still beats you and hits you in her sleep," Gon said, "It's amazing!"

"No it's not!" Killua objected. "Now, open the door so we can get rid of her."

"That's not a nice way to put it Killua. She isn't a dead corpse or anything."

"Well, at least I didn't decide to drag her by the leg."

"Why would anyone do that?"

"Don't question me!" Killua exclaimed. "Just open the door!"

"Okay, but don't drop her or anything!"

"Yes, yes, just open the door!"

Gon quietly opened the door and peeked inside, making sure that the coast was clear for Killua to enter. Looking over in one corner, Palm was fast asleep, still emitting that same eerie aura she emits when she's awake. After concealing his presence, Killua quietly tiptoed inside the room trying not to wake anyone up. When he finally got to the bed, he took another glance at Palm, making sure she wasn't awake before he prepared to put Himeko down. Gon watched his best friend trying to complete his MI5 mission in astonishment, and although it seemed like things couldn't get worse, they didn't consider the fact that the girl they were carrying was Himeko.

Although Killua wanted to place her down, he just couldn't. No, not because he didn't want to put her down, but because Himeko managed to grab hold of his shirt very firmly. Let's go back and emphasise on the fact that she held his shirt very firmly. So firmly, that is he didn't take better care, she could just rip a piece of.

_"Seriously, name me one weird sleeping habit this girl doesn't have,"_ Killua cursed in his head.

"Pst, Killua. Hurry up, I'm tired!" Gon whispered over from the doorway.

"You get over and help me first!" Killua half whispered, half yelled at him. Gon groggily made his way over to help his friend out, trying to release Himeko's grip from Killua's shirt. After a collective team effort, the pair managed to get her to let go of Killua's shirt and set her down on her pillow. After sighing in relief, the pair safely exited the room and called it a night.

* * *

**A/n-** After a couple of serious chapters, I finally decided to lighten the mood again. Anyone who wanted KouxKillua, here take it! I can't write anything more romantic than this! Actually that's a lie, but between these two I seriously can't. They are so awkward, it makes me feel awkward writing about them!

**Review Corner- **

**SilverDewDrop - **Yeah, Gon's daily struggle of trying to understand math are funny. Especially since they are relatable! I sometimes stare at my teacher in class like 'wtf are you on about, mate?' And I know what you mean about Gon, it broke my heart to see him down during this arc.

And actually I gave Shadow Himeko and Himeko the same ability to reason, it's just that one used it more efficiently than the other. Man, now I really want another chapter with her shadow, but Sensei's gone so I can't do anything about it. (Actually I can since I'm the author, but you know what I mean)

**JokeLover123 -** Yep, there were hardly any interactions between Kou and any of the main cast for so long, so hopefully this chapter made up for it!

**Last Future of Embryo -** Yeah, I felt down writing the conversation between Kou and Gon. They talk about happy stuff pretty much all the time, so it was hard for me to write :( I don't want to say anything about her Vows and Limitations yet, but I will tell you that Kou is pretty smart when she actually puts her mind into things. She thought it all through!

And MeruemxKomugi was my ultimate ship in this. I honestly didn't think Togashi had it in him to write such good love lines since, although YYH was really good, the love lines in that were pretty ordinary, hence I thought he scrapped the idea of romance for good in HxH. Togashi is pretty genius, but a lot of geniuses are really lazy. He took really long to write the Chimera ant arc, but it turned out really well so even if I have to wait for a few years, I'm sure he'll return with a solid plot and some Leorio and Kurapika character development.

**Kri -** Maybe in the future xD As for friends, yeah they don't look it but they trust each other enough to be close friends!

**Jikola -** I felt like it was unfair too at first, but somehow it was something Bisky said to motivate him to do better. He was being manipulated by Illumi for so long, even in one of the movies, and Killua himself felt like he would abandon Gon at some point. I think he did leave Gon behind in one of the two movies after seeing his brother (or a 'clone' of Illumi). I don't know when they'll actually meet again in the real manga, because Bisky told him that he has to leave Gon's side forever, but they did promise to meet again at some point. I'm sure they will after sorting out their thoughts (and after Togashi gave Kurapika and Leorio some screen time)

**Queechi -** Omg, I actually thought of Master Roshi when creating Sensei's character. I wanted him to be perverted first, but then I remembered that a lot of mentors in the anime world are perverted, so I didn't. But minus the pervert quality of Roshi, I thought of him when he trained Kou. I mean back during Dragonball I remember Roshi making Goku and Krillin deliver milk and stuff as their daily training.

And do you want Sensei to be some kind of Pokemon or something. Like Kou could just carry him around in a pokeball and summon him whenever she needed him to fight. Maybe I'll include that if I make a crack remake of this fanfic, which probably won't happen considering how long this fanfic turned out to be.

**JJ -** Thanks for the tip, I checked out the website and it was really helpful! I do have a few ideas in mind after taking inspiration from a couple of anime I've watched in the past such as Cardcaptors/ Cardcaptor Sakura (does anyone remember that?) and Gakuen Alice. If you do have any other tips, please let me know :)


	52. Gon's Date

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 52**

_Gon's date_

_..._

Early in the morning, Himeko was still fast asleep, but she couldn't ignore the noises in the room. The wardrobe being open and slammed closed, the drawers of the dressers being pulled open and shut closed every few minutes, although it was irritating, she chose to ignore it and just keep sleeping. Sensei was gone, she didn't have to train anymore which meant that she could just take the day off. But Palm who was busy since morning trying to find something nice to wear, pick out the right accessories, trying on different make-up looks couldn't help but disturb her every once in a while, having no one else left to turn to ask for an opinion.

"Kou," Palm's voice sounded reasonably normal that morning, almost unrecognisable for that matter. "How does this dress look on me?"

"Hmm," Himeko hummed in response, not even opening her eyes to see what Palm was wearing, hoping to shut her up.

"Should I wear the blue necklace, or the turquoise one?"

"Hmm."

"You have a point, I don't want to over accessories either," Palm nodded seriously, agreeing with Himeko. "Earrings should be more than enough, don't you think?"

"Hmm."

"You are right, the ones Bisky picked out for me would look good with this dress. What about make-up?"

"Hmm."

"I see, I should keep the make-up light on the first date."

"Hmm."

"Thanks, I will have fun on the date. You have fun training with Killua too!"

"Hmm."

Palm soon gathered all her important belongings in a little shoulder bag before she headed out of the door, to the place she was going to meet Gon. There were still two hours left until the meeting time, but nonetheless Palm couldn't keep in her excitement and left ahead of time just in case there was traffic on the way. With her gone and the noise level in the room back to zero, Himeko was finally able to get her well deserved rest after that month of training with Sensei.

Not even an hour later, the door slammed open. Himeko didn't make much of it; whoever it was could just come in, take what they want and leave. As long as they left her alone she was fine. However, that wasn't the case this time around. Before she knew it, her blanket was pulled off, leaving her curling up into a ball trying to retain the heat. The intruder waited patiently for a couple of seconds, hoping she would eventually give in and wake up, but that took much longer than he expected.

"Oi, washboard," he yelled loudly in an attempt to wake her up, "it's time for us two to leave. Weren't we going to follow Gon and Palm?"

"Five more minutes," Himeko mumbled back in response, "actually, make than a couple more hours, please."

"Their date will be over by then." Killua pointed out.

"Don't worry, just call Gon and tell him to make his date longer," Himeko suggested, still half asleep. "While you are at it, make me some blueberry muffins for breakfast, along with some freshly brewed Earl Grey tea. I don't want too many berries in my muffins, and make the tea moderately hot, no more than two tea spoons organic, brown sugar. I also want scrambled eggs on toast; eggs should be really fluffy, not overcooked or overly seasoned -"

The little patience Killua had left started to fade bit by bit, hearing that long, picky breakfast order; something she must have ordered while she was still rich and had servants doing everything for her. At some point, he had more than enough of her nonsense, "the Toilet paper ghost is out to get you!" He whispered in her ear. Somewhat amused by this, Killua smiled in satisfaction only to be punched straight in the face, falling back due to the impact. The moment he landed on the floor, Himeko finally opened her eyes and shot up, frantically looking around for whatever she might have hit right now hoping it was the so called ghost the stranger in her dreams warned her about. She was slightly disappointed to see only Killua lying on the floor with a nose bleed.

"Oh, it's just you Killua," she said in a slightly relieved tone, "you didn't see any ghost looking dudes around here, did you? High schooler, apparently quite good looking, might have been carrying colour toilet rolls around to offer to his victims."

Killua slowly got back up on his feet, rubbing his red nose in the process, "cut out this nonsense already and go get ready already! Gon and Palm are supposed to meet up in a bit."

"Ah," she seemed to have remembered something, "can you stand guard for me outside the toilet again? Just in case something happens to me inside."

Killua lost all patience to deal with her anymore. He quietly left the room, making Himeko wonder what was wrong with him or whether he finally snapped now. But he returned not too soon after he left, and handed her a white toilet paper roll. "Here, if the toilet ghost does end up coming, tell him that you already have toilet paper!"

Himeko ended up staring at the roll in awe, as if she had never seen one before. "Clever!" she commented before finally getting out of bed and making her way to the toilet, now suddenly fearless of that non-existent ghost in the toilet. Although Killua somehow managed to get her to get ready, he was already exhausted having to deal with her so early in the morning even though the day had just begun and they had a whole day of stalking to do. She couldn't recall anyone who needed someone to guide them to the toilet at this age; even his younger sister Alluka for that matter grew out of that phase a very long time ago.

Killua decided to wait in the living room, watching the news to check if there were any more incidents similar to the one from the previous day. He wasn't sure what the bigger threat to Gon was; it could be Palm who could lose her shit at any moment, or it could be the ants if they find him. Whatever it was, he felt the responsibility to make sure Gon doesn't get injured until he can look after himself. A half an hour wait paid off when Himeko finally came out of the bedroom ready to leave.

"I'm done!" She announced once she came out, and Killua nodded still focused on the TV screen. "How do I look?"

"Hm, it looks alright," he replied indifferently.

Himeko narrowed her eyes at him, "you didn't even look..." she pointed out, annoyed at him.

But once Killua looked, all he did was just stare at her, tilting his head ever so slightly. "You do know that you aren't the one going on the date, but stalking the ones going on the date?"

Himeko decided to take a double take on what she was wearing. A plain, white skirt with a lace hem along with a beige sweater with a floral print tucked into the skirt. Along with that, she wore white shoes and carried a small, black shoulder bag. Her outfit contrasted the plain, purple hoodie, jeans and trainers Killua wore. "But I look really good," she shamelessly complimented herself.

"You are drawing too much attention to yourself."

"But I look pretty in this," she repeated, trying to make it work as an excuse, "I only wore gym shorts and t-shirts for the past month, can't I wear this?"

"That's not the point, you don't want to stand out too much," Killua stated, "boys tend to stare if a pretty girl walks past."

"But wouldn't it be suspicious if two fully clothed children wearing hats and sunglasses, holding newspapers to cover their faces walk by?" Himeko questioned, only to find Killua dead silent all of the sudden. "Don't tell me... you were going to do just that, weren't you?"

"What else do you suggest in that case?"

"We'll follow them like normal people," she suggested, "like two siblings spending their day out in town."

Killua was dead silent once again, "we don't look anything like siblings..." he pointed out.

"Step siblings? Half siblings?" Himeko continued to throw random ideas at him, "friends chilling in town? A pair of tourists looking around town? A couple on a date?"

Killua continued to think, not really being that impressed by her ideas, while the last idea just made him too nervous. He didn't exactly know whether she was joking about some of these, especially the 'a pair of tourists looking around town' and 'a couple on a date' sounded like one of Himeko's lame jokes, so he didn't want to randomly choose a scenario she just made up for giggles and make things awkward for them. In the end, he stayed quiet, which somehow started to annoy Himeko. She went back into her room and came back with what seemed like a mustache stuck under her nose. For some reason, the combination of her clothes and the out of place fake mustache was funny enough for Killua to have to hold in his laughter.

"Okay, we'll go with your plan and use disguises." she declared before handing him a white beard, "I couldn't buy you a mustache since they were all black, but they had things from last christmas so I just went for the santa beard. It matches the colour of your hair!"

He wondered whether she was actually being serious now, or whether it was one of her lame jokes again but she seemed dead serious. "Friends chilling in town it is!" Himeko smiled in satisfaction and went back to put the Santa beard away. Let's not wonder why she had a fake Santa beard and mustache ready. She then returned with the mustache still stuck on. Killua pointed at it, "you forgot to take it off."

"Can't I just wear it now that I have it on?" she asked, once again completely serious, "it looks funny, come on even you were about to laugh!" Killua responded by ripping the mustache off, making her scream in pain. "Ouch! Fuck, that hurt!"

"Let's get going!" Killua gathered his phone and keys together before walking towards the door. Himeko smiled and followed.

"Hey, there is a good restaurant around here, can we go and visit it afterwards?"

"We won't have enough time."

"Oh, come on." she pleaded. "I'll treat you!"

"Maybe."

"I'm being nice to you and offering to pay for lunch. You should accept it while you have the chance."

"I said maybe, if we have time."

Himeko and Killua knew exactly where Gon and Palm were going to meet up that noon, so they were there ahead of time, trying to blend in with the crowd so Gon, who was already waiting there couldn't spot them. He was there already, but Palm was still missing. But then, the pair noticed a pretty, young lady in her twenties approach Gon. She had long, straight, brown hair, wore a modest dress along with some make-up. Gon seemed confused at first, but once he recognised who it was he broke out into a huge smile.

"Palm, I almost didn't recognise you. You look really pretty!" he commented cheerfully, making Palm all flustered.

"Who the hell is that?!" Killua yelled, seeing a completely different looking woman claiming to be Palm.

"If you were in Gon's place right now and commented like that, you would have been dead." Himeko told him. "You should learn a thing or two from Gon if you don't want to spend the rest of your life alone!"

"Speak for yourself!"

"Shush, they are leaving!"

"Let's go after them. I swear, if we end up losing them it's probably going to be your fault!"

"Shut up, Killua!"

Gon and Palm's first stop turned out to be an aquarium. According to Killua, Gon was the one who planned the date and although having a date at an aquarium was pretty cliche, it was still a safe location to choose for a first date and still really romantic. Of course, Killua and Himeko were not too far behind the two love birds keeping a close eye on them whilst trying to get through the sea of couples flooding the building. Killua carefully kept an eye on both Gon and Palm who were watching the penguins. Palm seemed to have initiated a conversation with Gon, but neither of them were close enough to hear what she said. He saw Gon letting out a chuckle before the two of them started moving towards the next tank.

"Come on," Killua motioned for Himeko to go after them, "we can't lose sight of them here!"

"Um, Killua. There is a small problem."

"Deal with it later, we have to keep an eye on them if we don't want to lose them in this crowd."

"I could deal with it later, if the problem wasn't hugging my leg that is."

_"Hugging her leg, what the hell?" _Killua turned around to see Himeko standing there frozen, possibly crying inside. There was a little boy, no older than four clinging onto one of her legs, hiding behind her. The little boy peaked over at Killua with his large, innocent blue eyes, before he hid behind her again. Himeko on the other hand was just trying to send out SOS calls to Killua as she had no clue on how to deal with children. The little boy who seemed overly attached to Himeko making Killua wonder whether they knew each other, but from Himeko's body language that wasn't the case. "Do you know this kid?"

Himeko frantically shook her head, trying to tell him that she had absolutely no idea who this child was and why he was clinging so tightly to her.

"Then just tell him to go back to his parents, it's not that hard!"

"I could," Himeko started off, "but I don't know how!"

"It's a four year old, just tell the kid to go back to his parents and he will listen."

"That's the point, I don't know how to deal with kids. Help!" she let out a yelp in a state of panic.

Killua looked back to see whether Gon and Palm were still around, but they were not. They had wasted too much time with this nonsense and they've lost sight of the two. Killua sighed in annoyance before he calmly walked to the child and knelt down, so he was at eye level with the little blonde boy. The boy curiously peeked over to see who this was, but after confirming that it was a stranger he shyly went back to hide behind Himeko.

"What's your name? Where are your parents?" Killua asked, but the boy just quietly shook the head refusing to talk to a total stranger. Well, at least his parents taught him well; although he was hiding and clinging to another complete stranger. The boy shuffled over further behind Himeko, hoping that if he wasn't able to see Killua, Killua wouldn't be able to see him. Killua tried repeating the question again, but with no results. It seemed to have only made the little boy a lot more cautious of his surroundings. "Why don't you try, he seems to know you."

"I don't know him though!"

"Just try for god's sake so we can go find Gon and the crazy woman."

Himeko hesitantly turned around to see the boy look up at her with his large, sparkly eyes. _"Why me?"_ Himeko sobbed internally, before bending down so she too was at the boy's eye level. In an instant, a big grin appeared on the boy's face before he pulled Himeko into a big hug, startling her in turn. She turned to Killua, trying to send out SOS signals again, hoping he would help her out of this awkward situation.

"Mommy!" The little blonde boy exclaimed full of happiness, making Himeko's face darken.

"Eeeh?! Mommy?!" She almost screamed in surprise. She had never seen this boy before, neither did she remember ever popping out a kid or adopting one. Maybe the kid mistook her for someone else and started clinging to her. She lightly pushed the boy away from her to examine his features again, but nope, she couldn't recognise the four year old.

Killua too couldn't believe his ears and stood there, blankly staring at the little boy, then at Himeko, and looked back at the little boy. He narrowed his eyes at her in suspicion, "did you perhaps... you know, the birds and the bees?"

"No!" She yelled at him before he could even finish his question, "this kid doesn't even look like me! Besides, how can I have time to have a child when I'm a complete character cliche who needs to take revenge for my clan's death?"

"I don't look like my mother either, you know," Killua pointed out, telling her that he looked a lot more like his father than his mother, "he could just take after his father." Himeko took another close look at the boy. There was only one person she could think of that had blonde hair and light blue eyes, and just the thought of that made her face turn red. "Wow, your face actually went red. You pervert, you actually did think about someone, didn't you?" Killua pointed out the obvious, much to Himeko's annoyance. "Hey, you didn't think about Kurap-"

Himeko loudly objected, "Killua!"

"Calm down, it was just a joke."

"Your jokes suck, Killua, just like you!"

"We should look for the kid's real parents and get out of here, ask him where his parents are."

Himeko turned to the child and did as she was told, "where are your parents?"

The boy took a moment to look around the area to check for the whereabouts of his parents, but it didn't seem like he could find them. He probably ended up losing sight of his own parents after following Himeko for whatever reason. The boy looked back at Himeko before shaking his head, "not here," he said.

Not knowing what to ask next, Himeko once again looked at Killua for the next step. Killua just sighed at how clueless she really was in this situation, "you really are useless when it comes to kids, aren't you? We should take him to the front desk and ask them to do an announcement for his parents to come and pick him up."

"That's smart!"

"It's common sense," Killua corrected her statement, "come on then!"

Killua stood up and looked at the little leaflet with a map of the aquarium, trying to figure out the way to the front desk. Himeko too decided to stand back up, wondering what she should do with the little boy that was staring at her with awestruck eyes. The boy was cute, but it was slightly awkward for her to deal with young children as she never had to deal with them in the past. "Mommy," the little boy beamed once again, giving her the brightest smile.

"_So cute!"_ Himeko smiled to herself, _"sorry kid, I'm not your mother!"_

Killua folded the leaflet and put it away after figuring out where to go. "Let's go," he said, "keep and eye on the boy so he doesn't get lost in the crowd. It would be better if you held his hand."

"Me?" She asked, "why can't you do it? You seem to know a lot about kids anyway!"

"He obviously feels more comfortable with you."

"I can ask him," she turned to the boy with hopeful eyes, "hey, would you mind if grandpa Killua here held your hand?"

The boy shook his head, indicating that he didn't want to walk with Killua before safely hiding behind Himeko, tightly gripping onto the hem of her skirt.

"Look, he'd rather walk with you. So stop being such a baby and suck it up! And while you're at it, stop calling me grandpa Killua," Killua said before he turned to the little boy, "make sure to hold this nee-chan's hand really tightly while walking, and don't let go until she says so, okay?" Compared to Himeko's tone and way of speaking to the child, Killua's seemed a lot more appropriate. He knew how to speak to children, speaking softly and slowly, emphasising on certain words whilst giving his instructions.

Killua led the way to the front desk, and Himeko tried to walk as closely to him as possible. However, pulling along a four year old while trying to keep up with a fast walker like Killua seemed difficult. The boy tried his best to keep up with her speed, but Himeko soon realised that she had to slow down and walk at the little boy's pace. Now that she managed to slow down, the boy seemed a lot more comfortable and skipped along happily, making her smile. Killua also slowed down his walking pace after he noticed that the two weren't keeping up with him.

"You're really good with kids, you know," Himeko commented.

"That's because I have younger siblings," Killua replied, "speaking of children, you suck at taking care of kids. I feel sorry for whoever has to deal with you in the future."

"Well, excuse me! I don't have any younger siblings, and most of my cousins were around my age, so of course I'll suck!"

"He's looks like he's getting tired from the walking."

Himeko looked back at the boy she was literally dragging along now. He slowed down in pace and did seem worn out from all the walking around. "Are you tired?" The boy nodded his head, before letting out a loud yawn. Seeing this, Himeko crouched down, "I'll carry you, get on my back and hold on."

"Make sure to hold him tightly," Killua reminded her, "he's still young, so he might let go if he get's distracted by something. He already seems to have his head in the clouds, considering that he's actually followed you instead of his own parents."

After hearing Killua's instructions, Himeko made sure to check up on the little boy, making sure he was holding onto her every once in a while. They were now able to get through the crowd much faster, and it didn't take them long to reach the front desk. After making an announcement, the pair waited for the little boy's parents to turn up. They didn't have to wait too long, as an overjoyed woman in her late twenties rushed over after seeing the little boy.

"Shouta," she cried in joy, hugging the little boy tightly. The little boy let out a bright smile, hugging her back.

"Mommy," he beamed at the sight of his mother. Seeing the reunion of mother and son, Killua and Himeko couldn't help but feel a sense of responsibility being lifted off their shoulders. The woman soon stood back up with her son in her arms and thanked the pair. "I'm not sure how I'm supposed to thank you two, I let my son out of my sight for a second and the next he was gone," she explained, "it's pretty busy today, so I was hoping that he didn't get too far and looked around the area. Thankfully the two of you found him."

"That's not the problem, just make sure to keep an eye on him the next time." Killua told her in a slightly stern tone, "he's still young, so he could have followed some shady people not knowing the dangers. It's crowded, so it would have been really hard to find him."

"I'm really sorry about this, I'll make sure to keep my eyes on him. I just don't know what made him walk away from me today, that's very unusual."

Just then, the young Shouta pointed at Himeko, "Mommy, look mommy!"

"Kid, I'm not you mo-"

Upon examining Himeko closer, the Shouta's mother let out a surprised gasp, "you're right, Shouta, this nee-chan looks like Mami!"

Being very confused at this point, Killua gave Himeko a little nudge, "do you perhaps have a nickname, or middle name, or maybe a stage name?" he whispered over. Himeko just shook her head, not having heard of the name Mami before. At least it sounded a lot better than being called mommy by a child she didn't even know.

"I see now," the woman laughed wholeheartedly, "you resemble one of Shouta's favourite characters quite a bit."

"Favourite character?" she asked.

"Yes, Mami from Mami's Delivery Service*," the woman answered, "I'm sure you would have heard of it, it's quite a popular movie by Studio Chibli**."

After a quick yet awkward conversation, the woman and Shouta departed, thanking the pair once again, leaving them dumbfounded by what just happened. A child followed her because she resembled his favourite character from a movie, he clung onto her mispronouncing the character's name and calling her 'mommy' instead which made Himeko doubt herself on whether that kid was actually hers, then they looked for the irresponsible mother. In the end, the two of them completely lost sight of Gon and Palm.

Killua let out a frustrated sigh, to which Himeko couldn't help but feel a little bad. "I'm sorry, I'm going to look for Gon. I'll call you once I found them."

Before she could walk back in the direction they just came from, Killua grabbed her wrist. "It's no use, they would have left by now."

"Then I'll go and look for them outside," she told him.

"Don't be stupid, you're going to get yourself lost in the process," he pointed out, "we'll run into them sooner or later. I'm hungry, buy me lunch."

"I thought you didn't want to eat out."

"We might as well go to the restaurant you wanted to go to, now that we don't know where Gon went."

"Fine, let's get something to eat first," she sighed at Killua's sudden change of heart, "and by the way, how long are you planning to hold my hand. Want me to take you to the lost children's section at the front desk too now?"

After checking whether his hand was actually holding hers, Killua quickly retracted his hand and hid it behind his back out of embarrassment, "I-I didn't hold it on purpose, I was just making sure that you don't go off and do something stupid again."

Meanwhile, Himeko looked around the area, "is it just me or is it really hot today?" She asked randomly, scanning the large crowd of people visiting the place, "look, even your face is red. Let's get ice cream after lunch, okay?"

_"Thank god, she was in her own world just now."_

"Killua, is something wrong? Are you not feeling well? Didn't you get enough sleep last night? Wait, what even happened after I fell asleep last night?" Himeko gave it a quick thought before it finally clicked, "Ah! You must have carried-"

"Let's go and get lunch!" Killua cut her off in embarrassment, before dragging her along out of the aquarium, trying to change the topic, "I'll buy you ice cream afterwards."

"Really? You serious? Cheapskate Killua is actually going to treat me to ice cream?" It didn't take much for Killua to change the topic, and on the way out she listed a list of ice cream flavours she wanted to try out but hadn't had a chance to because of her training getting in the way. Although Killua was glad that she didn't bring back memories from last night, he couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for his own wallet that was going to get emptied in a while.

In the restaurant, Himeko left to go to the counter to order the food while Killua waited by their seats. After being reminded of his thoughts from last night, he couldn't help but get red-faced every time he thought of it. He quietly started chanting what at first glance sounded like a mantra, attracting quite a lot of attention from some other customers sitting nearby, "washboard, washboard, washboard, washboard, washboard." After venting all of his frustration, he looked back out of the large shop window ,_"I can't believe I actually thought that she liked me yesterday, even if it was just for a moment. I even got happy about it, I mean she isn't even that cute. Maybe just a little when she keeps her mouth closed, or when she mumbles in her sleep, but even that's pushing it a little. I should probably go and hang out with real women, staying with three crazy gorilla women must have really messed up my senses and I'm definitely not in denial! Why do I feel so perverted for checking her out while she was asleep? I can't even call her washboard anymore without feeling guilty about it. I mean she's flat, but not actually flat flat. I'm not even making any sense anymore, wait, I even recorded her sleep talking didn't I? Great, now I'm not just a borderline pervert, I've scooped way lower than that."_

"Mommy, that nii-chan is scaring me," a little girl commented, pointing at the deep in thought Killua. The girl's mother just quietly scolding her daughter.

"Don't point at the creepy nii-chan, Mai. Come on, eat your food."

_"I am not a creepy nii-chan!" _Killua told himself, _"Washboard isn't even that cute, I must have made a mistake because it was dark. Yeah, that's right, I made a mistake because it was dark and she looked better than she does normally." _

"Let me guess, you are thinking about the all mighty Himeko Inoue," before Killua knew it, Himeko was already back after ordering the food and sat down in front of him.

"W-what?" Killua started to stutter as he was caught red handed, "n-no I wasn't!"

"Calm down, I was just joking!" She chuckled at his reaction, "don't worry too much, Gon will be fine. He can handle Palm somehow, and if an ant is around we should be able to sense their presence. It'll be fine!"

Killua could only return a guilty smile, slightly relieved by how oblivious Himeko was,_ "she thought I was thinking about Gon."_

"That aside, I'm sorry I fell asleep last night. I was tired!" She apologised before bringing back last night's topic, "I hope I didn't miss anything important."

"No, you didn't," Killua just shook his head, "it's better if you didn't get involved and wreck your brain with other people's problems. You probably have your own problems to think about, don't worry too much about me."

"I promised Bisky that I won't interrupt your fights, they will be yours and I will stay out of them. But that doesn't mean that I won't try and come up with a solution for it all. You always hear me out when I have something on my mind, even back when we weren't even good friends, so please, I want you to rely on me in return. You promised me back in Yorkshin that if you were to ever be in any sorts of trouble, you'd tell me about it."

"That was a one sided promise made by you," he pointed out, reminding her that he didn't exactly promise anything. She just forced it all onto him.

"You know, I don't know what your family nailed into your head while you grew up, but it doesn't matter how strong you actually are. At the end of the day, you are no god, just another human being. There is a limit to how much you can bear, once you reach it you will break down and try to vent it all out at once. Whether it be you being too afraid to fight, being afraid of what might happen to Gon, or whether it be your promise to leave Gon's side if you were to lose to Shoot, I heard it all from her," she admitted. "But then again, why would you even agree to leave Gon? Weren't you the one that wanted a friend. Even when you gave up on it, wasn't it Gon that got you back from the Zoldyck estate? Wasn't it him who got angry at your brother back then? He even went as far as breaking his arm in anger. You got what you wanted, at least try and hold onto it properly."

"That's why I've decided to protect Gon until then," he said, "until it's time for us to go separate ways. Do I really deserve a friend like him when I could potentially leave him behind in danger just to save myself?"

"Do you even remember how cocky and full of yourself you were during the Hunter exam?" She questioned him. "'This is easy', 'it doesn't require much effort', 'this wasn't a challenge at all', you were the cocky bastard that said all of that. It was annoying seeing you not even breaking a sweat when I was barely passing each of the phases. I started to take training seriously after seeing you, hoping that one day I wouldn't need yours or anyone's help. But honestly speaking, I'd rather listen to you brag about yourself than hear you doubting yourself when you can do all the things you put your mind to. Watching you and Gon train makes me envious sometimes, you make it seem so easy."

"I was really full of myself, because I wasn't as mature as I am now."

"I was too scared to face stronger opponents, and the more I see Gon, the more worried I get," she confessed, "I realised that you were the one who kept us two out of trouble all this time, so out of all three of us, you need to snap out of it the most. Even if it's not me, even if it's not Gon, it has to be you. Maturity doesn't have anything to do with it, how can Kite still be so confident with himself yet be so strong?"

"There is no use now, a promise is a promise and I can't go back on a promise I made involving my friends," he explained, "I think of you the same way I think of Gon. In that way, I might have to leave you too."

"It's nice to know that you actually think of me as a friend," she teased, "but just because you have to leave me, doesn't mean I have to leave you," Himeko cleverly pointed out, "it's your promise, it stays between you and Bisky, but I have made no such promises with her and neither am I planning to make one. If I stick with you then it's my choice and you can't force me to leave! The same goes for Gon of course," Killua was slightly surprised by her reasoning. Her stubbornness was on par with Gon's, "After all, I'm a Hunter, and in order to be qualified as a Hunter, I must hunt something. Just try running, I'll hunt you down!"

"Excuse me," the waitress interrupted and placed two plates in front of them, "please enjoy your meal."

"Thank you so much!"

The waitress smiled at them, "Please let me know if you need something else."

"Sure!" Himeko grinned back. Once the waitress left back to her station, Himeko and Killua began eating in silence. Killua seemed a little speechless for now, so he quietly continued eating without making much fuss. After being done eating, they ordered dessert and looked out of the window, waiting for something to happen. Who knows, maybe Gon and Palm could decide to show up at any point.

"Is there anything you want to do?" She asked him, breaking what seemed like an eternity long silence.

Killua thought for a while, still looking outside before he managed to think of something he wanted to do, "they rent out bikes in the nearby park."

"I see," she commented, unenthusiastically, "well, knock yourself out. I'll just watch."

"Why, are you too scared to get left behind in my dust?" He let out a snicker, but she responded with silence. "Could it be... Don't tell me, the _great_ Himeko Inoue doesn't know how to-"

"That's right, I don't know how to ride a bike," she admitted putting up no fight at all. Killua who was just trying to provoke her found himself blinking at her sudden confession. He found it quite hard to believe at first, riding a bicycle was one of the simplest things in life. He was surprised to hear that she didn't know how to do such a simple thing, especially since she was one of those kids that learnt a lot during childhood. Noticing his shocked expression, she explained, "I was never required to learn how to ride a bike, so I was never taught how to. My parents picked out the things that I needed to know and were actually useful for my future. I couldn't afford to waste my time with things I didn't need in the future and those things were generally left for the servants to be done. If I was feeling hungry, I could just tell someone and I'd have food in front of me in no time, if I were to be in any sorts of danger I would have had dozens of guards lined up just to protect me," she let out a suppressed snicker thinking back, "thinking back I was spoon fed by everyone, but honestly is there really a point in knowing how to do something you never get to do?"

"So you never did any kind of sport as a child?" Killua asked curiously.

"There was traditional dance, but I never really like it," she continued to explain. "It was supposed to help me become more ladylike and elegant." Killua could have just laughed at that statement, but he held it in as it would have been really rude, especially since she didn't even have the freedom to choose what she could do as a child. But while he was trying his best to hold in his laughter, Himeko started laughing, "I guess that didn't exactly help, huh? I mean look at how graceful I've become, it's actually really funny!"

"What about martial arts? You just learned dancing? That's it?"

"I just started learning how to fight after joining the dojo."

"What about before that?"

"I guess I just went with the flow…" she thought back at how reckless she really was, "my body has the ability to adapt quickly, so learning how to throw a few punches on my own wasn't too hard after watching a couple of people do it. I never really bothered with it; I was always satisfied with how strong I was, until I finished the Hunter exam."

"Then, I'll teach you how to ride a bike," Killua suggested, earning a blank expression from Himeko. "Or could you just be too chicken to try. _My body has the ability to adapt quickly_ you said?" Killua asked mockingly, "you just don't want to fall off and humiliate yourself in public. Well, if you don't want to then you can just watc-"

The more Killua provoked her, the more annoyed she got, "bring it on!"

Killua victoriously got out of his seat and grabbed Himeko out of the shop, dragging her all the way to the bike rental store. After fighting over whether to get the baby blue bike, or the midnight blue bike, they eventually settled down on a medium shade of blue before heading to the park already packed with many people enjoying their day off. With the bike, Killua led the way to find a clear spot for Himeko to practice before stopping at a good spot with a smooth path.

"Let's practice here," he declared, handing her the bicycle. Himeko held the handles, trying to figure out a way to get on the seat without falling off. "Use the pedals to get on, I'll hold the bike while you pedal."

"Make sure to hold the bike tightly, I don't want to fall!"

"Yeah, yeah, just get on already." Himeko looked down at the pedals, and rolled the bike back a little so the pedals were in a good position for her to use them to get on. After looking back to check whether Killua was actually holding the bike properly, she used one of her legs to step on one of the pedals and managed to get on the bike. She took a couple seconds to get used to it, panicking whenever it felt like she was about to fall off. "Stop panicking, look forward, keep pedalling and keep holding onto the handles," Killua instructed sternly.

"Roger, sir."

"Just remember to keep pedalling, you'll topple over if you stop."

"Okay," Himeko continued to pedal, looking straight ahead to make sure she wasn't running into anyone, "h-hey, this is actually kinda fun."

"I told you so."

"Are there any tricks you can do with a bike."

"You just started learning how to ride a bike less than a minute ago, hold your horses."

"So you can! What about flips and stuff? Can you do them? You used to be able to do them on the skateboard."

"You need a proper bike and a proper skatepark to do them in," Killua explained. "You can't do much on flat ground. I'll teach you if we go to a skatepark."

"If we ever go to one," she corrected him, mocking him in the process, "how do you plan to take me to a skatepark if you are planning to leave me and Gon?"

"You are still talking about that? Weren't you the one who wanted to hunt me down if I were to run away?"

"I can't do that forever, the world doesn't revolve around you Killua!"

"I never said anything about the world revolving about me."

"Listen up," Himeko started off, looking back at Killua wanting to continue her argument, but she stopped when she saw Killua casually walking, not holding onto the bike anymore. "What the hell are you doing, you said you'll hold onto the bike so I don't fall!" She screamed at him, trying not to panic now that she was left on her own.

"Calm down, I didn't promise to hold onto the bike for your whole journey," he pointed out, "besides, you've been doing this all by yourself. I only helped you get on and let go."

"Traitor..."

"Oi, watch where you're going! Pay attention to where you're going!"

Following their short argument, Himeko kept going and eventually stopped after a few laps and passed the bike to Killua who also wanted to try riding a couple of laps. Himeko kept him company, occasionally trying to start small talk and tried hard to keep up as Killua purposely sped up. Once he was done, Himeko was too annoyed trying to keep up with him and told him to return the bike. Killua returned from the bike rental store, "let's go to the arcade," he insisted.

"Arcade?"

Before she could even complain about her wallet being lighter than usual, Killua proceeded to drag her the nearby arcade which too was packed with teenagers trying their luck getting high scores and win prizes. He led the way in once again, looking around for something to catch his eye. Himeko followed, looking at everything in awe as this was her first time in an arcade. She felt a little out of place, but looked very out of place as she made it very obvious that she was a complete noob.

"Hey, let's play that first!" Killua said, pointing at one of the two-player shooting games that was free. Himeko had no chance to disagree or at least agree to his choice and was dragged along to the machine. Killua dropped in some silver coins and started to explain the game, "you just have to move the gun controller around to aim and shoot at the bad guys using the trigger before they kill you, got it?"

"This button?"

"Yeah, that's right! If you run out of bullets you have to reload using the other button," Killua told her, before showing her which button he was talking about. He then pressed the start button and the pair waited for the zombies to appear. One by one, the started coming closer and Killua had no trouble shooting down anyone on his side, while Himeko was just really bad at aiming and quickly ran out of bullets. Guns weren't exactly her specialty, after all she used swords to fight and was more comfortable with them. It wasn't too long before she got herself killed, losing all three lives and waited for Killua to complete it. Although one player was down, he managed to beat every single one without breaking a sweat. Once they were done, Killua looked around and pointed at a racing game that was free. "That one!"

Once again, before Himeko could even have any say, she was dragged along to the next machine and obediently sat down. Killua seemed to be paying for all the games so she didn't exactly mind. This game was simple enough for Himeko to figure out on her own; just step on the accelerator and steer using the steering wheel. Killua didn't bother explaining the rules and just pressed start. All Himeko had to do was stay on the lane and reach the finish line before Killua and the computer simulated cars and she was surprising very good at it. She even knew that she could take out her competition by tackling their cars without Killua telling her, which annoyed him a little as she kept trying to push his car out of the way.

"Hey, stop tackling me!" Killua shouted once he had enough. "You don't see anyone doing that on the road."

"Nope, this is a game, I want to win!"

"Now you're going to get it," he too began tackling her car now, "take that!"

"Hey!" Himeko complained once her car was pushed off the lane. The two started to get competitive, trying to shove each other off the lane and stopped paying attention to the actual race, causing them to both come in at last place. Well, Himeko came in at second to last place, making Killua officially last, but she was still satisfied because she beat him.

Now that he lost to a complete newbie, Killua tried to make it his mission to win the next game. He pointed at the DDR machine and once again dragged her along before she could say anything. After one game was done, they took turns to pick new games to play now that their prides were both at stake. Killua chose different shooting games, knowing that Himeko was completely useless at aiming while Himeko picked the racing games. Rhythm games, shooting the basketball into the hoop, crane games; they tried them all before they've had more than enough.

Himeko however was still stuck at one of the crane games, trying to get out a cupcake plush. After three tries, she still failed and eventually gave in. "Hey Killua, try to get that one for me."

"Which one?" he asked, peeking through the glass.

"The cupcake."

"That has a creepy face though," he pointed out, "why don't you just get the purple dragon over there."

"I want the cupcake though."

"Fine, move out of the way!" He put in a silver coin before trying his luck, carefully watching the crane move before pressing the buttons. The pair watched nervously as the crane moved down, hoping it would grab the plush she wanted. They both sighed in relieve as the crane managed to grab hold of the plush and pulled it up, dropping it into the little hole for them to take out. "There, take it out!" Himeko grinned in satisfaction before taking out the hard earned cupcake plush. "Let's go and find Gon, we wasted a good few hours in town already."

"But weren't you the one who wanted to go bike riding and play arcade games?"

"Shut up, you had fun too!"

Himeko remembered how Bisky told her to keep an eye on both Killua and Gon while she was gone, and she also knew that both of them were quite upset leaving Kite behind; she was too, so she understood how she felt. But it took her some time to realise that both of them had other worries too and that Killua didn't just worry about himself, but everyone else too although he had his own problems to think about. She told her to try and get along with him better, even if it was just for a little while and to be honest, she did try her best not to argue too much with him and surprisingly it was a lot of fun.

"Let's go then," she smiled before leading the way out, but before they could reach the exit, two figures blocked their paths. Himeko and Killua looked up to see two taller boys standing in front of them, crossing their arms and smirking at them. Neither of them knew the two boys, so they tried to find a way to walk around them, only to get their paths blocked by them again and again. "Hey, do you know these two bastards," she whispered over to Killua.

"No, I was hoping that you knew them," Killua whispered back.

"Does it look like I'd befriend cocky people like this?"

"Touche!" Killua said, as she had a very valid point, "they might be fans of Mami's Delivery Service."

"Oh, just shut up Killua!"

"Um, just to let you know, this girl isn't Mami from Mami's Delivery Service, so please don't follow us thinking she is," Killua told the two boys, only for them to start snickering at him. Killua had an instant urge to punch the two in their faces, but controlled himself as they were in a public place and didn't want to cause trouble.

"Hey, girl, is this joker your boyfriend or something?" The slightly obese, blonde boy asked Himeko, only to get an instant glare from her.

_"Oh no, they stepped into a danger zone,"_ Killua thought, "hey, washboard, I think they are trying to hit on you," he whispered to Himeko, loud enough for only her to hear.

"Firstly, the name's Himeko, secondly I'd like some respect when being addressed, thirdly, the only jokers I see is you two and lastly no, he's not."

The boys didn't exactly pay much attention to the long list just now, neither did Killua. They all just payed attention to the last bit. The pair instantly looked at each other before the tanned boy with black hair started talking, "why don't you hang around with us for a little longer?"

_"They are definitely hitting on her now,"_ Killua thought, _"are they blind or something, why would they hit on her?"_

"I'd like to point out that I'm thirteen, so no."

"Don't worry, we are both fourteen."

Killua thought that this was the perfect opportunity to interrupt and warned the two losers, "woah, whoa, whoa, have you two taken a good look at her? Is she really worth trying to chat up although she has such attitude? Just take my advice and play your games."

"She's just playing hard to get," the blonde tried to inform Killua on the arts of flirting, "all girls do it! Besides, she's pretty cute, you can't be spending time with her and think she's not."

"Playing hard to get, huh?" Himeko asked before clenching her fists, ready to storm into action. "I'll show you who's playing hard to get; hard to get a slap that is!"

Before she could cause any sorts of trouble, Killua had to hold her back so she doesn't send two idiots to the hospital. Paying hospital bills is something he didn't want to do, neither would his wallet appreciate it. "Calm down, just ignore them. Let's just get going."

"Oh, look who's scared and wants to run." Killua didn't let it get to him, he just stayed cool knowing these two weren't worth the fuss. "The midget is too scared to fight us." This however was enough to make Killua stop and accept the challenge, this time being held back by Himeko.

"Calm down," she repeated the exact same words he told her earlier, "they aren't worth the trouble."

"How about this, the midget and I play a game," the tanned boy suggested, "if he wins, we'll let you go. If he loses, Himeko stays here."

"That's more civilised than breaking your teeth," Killua commented. He could still choose to ignore these losers and walk away, but he didn't want to run from weaklings too now. "Choose the game."

"Do I even get a say in this?" Himeko asked, irritated by the fact that they chose to completely ignore her now.

"No," all three of them gave her a firm answer.

"Geez," she sighed, and followed all three of them to the machine the tanned boy chose. It was one of those strength testing machines where the player had to use a hammer to hit a platform which then measures the players strength. The two boys were overly confident, while Himeko and Killua just blankly looked at their choice, asking themselves whether they should be taken seriously, "should I just tell them?"

"They won't believe that were are stronger than them even if we told them."

"Fine, just don't break the machine. I'm not going to pay to get it fixed."

"Sure, just tell your admirers to go easy on me," Killua snickered, before turning to the tanned boy. "You can go first."

The tanned boy went up first, using the hammer to hit the platform and then waiting for his score to be displayed. It wasn't that high to be honest, but he seemed pretty proud of it. "290, that's my personal best!" He turned around to see everyone's reactions; his friend was overly happy for him, Killua just shrugged indifferently, while Himeko just gave him a sarcastic slow clap. He handed the hammer over to Killua, "let's see you beat that, midget!"

Killua didn't go all out, he just lightly hit the platform with no effort at all and the machine chimed, displaying the new high score. He put the hammer back down and looked at the two boys who's mouths were wide open, "1998, I won!"

"What?!" The blond started to protest, "there's got to be something wrong with the machine. There's no way a midget like you can get such a high score!"

"Anyone can beat your score, even she can," Killua said, handing the hammer to Himeko. "Just see for yourself."

Himeko swung the hammer lightly, trying not to break the machine. The machine chimed once more, displaying the newest high score. "I got 4001!" She said, pointing at the screen, leaving the boys' mouths hang wide open.

"You told me to hold back, yet you didn't."

"I did hold back as much as I could, it's not my fault I'm stronger than you."

"No you're not, just keep telling yourself that!"

The tanned boy felt the need to interrupt their little argument on who's the strongest out of the two, "you two obviously cheated, there's no way you two midgets are this strong."

"We obviously won, now do me a favour and back off before I give you a reality slap, literally!"

"I challenge you two to another game," he said, pointing at another game machine in the distance, "if you win that, we'll let you go."

Himeko had more than enough of his stubbornness, but before she could argue with him Killua kicked the boy in his shin, making him groan in pain. "She told you to back off, didn't she?" he asked in an irritated tone, "besides, she is too pretty to be hanging around with morons like you, so run off and find someone who's in your league. I'm not going to let her stay here with you two losers no matter how many stupid games you challenge us to play," he vented all his annoyance at them before turning towards the exit. Himeko wasn't following him, and once he noticed he looked back to see her looking at him in utter confusion, "what the hell are you looking at, let's go."

"Right," she snapped out of it and followed quietly, looking back at the boys to make sure they weren't following them. Once they were out of the arcade, she kept up with Killua, still carrying that giant cupcake plush.

"_'I want to look pretty'_ she says, _'I want to stand out'_ she says," he mocked her in a high pitched voice.

"Hey! I don't sound anything like that!" Himeko started to protest.

"_'Hey, I don't sound anything like that!'_" Killua continued to imitate her in a high pitched voice.

"Seriously, stop it!"

"_'Seriously, stop it!'_"

"Hey, isn't that Gon and Palm over there?"

"_Hey, isn't that Gon and Pa-,'_" Killua stopped to look around, "where?!" Killua carefully scanned the area for his best friend before he finally found them. "Let's follow them!" He exclaimed before dragging Himeko along to continue following Gon on his date.

* * *

**A/n-** Whoop, I know the chapter is called Gon's date, but ended up being more of a date for Killua and Kou. This is probably a moment a lot of you have been waiting for since last december (that's when I started writing this fanfic btw, and also if you didn't know already, Himeko's birthday is the date I first published the first chapter. Now you know!) If you are wondering why I'm updating so frequently, it's because I might go on a mini-hiatus soon for like a month or so because I have mock exams coming up in January. They're just mocks, but I still wanna do well.

**Review Corner-**

**SilverDewDrop-** The story Palm told is an actual urban legend in Japan. I just find Japanese urban legends really interesting to read, so I just read them. And I'm not sure what would happen if someone asked for purple paper; maybe strangulation followed by stabbing. I don't know, someone should really try it out! Not me though, I don't really plan on dying like that.

That's a really funny habit xD I'm just a really heavy sleeper, so I don't wake up easily. That's why either my mum or dad have to wake me up because I don't hear the alarm. Killua's dilemma was cute, I tried to imagine it while writing!

Call me a nerd, but as much as I complain about math I still like it. Sure, now that I'm 16 there seem to be more letters than numbers involved, but compared to english lit., history and all those written subjects you can either have a right or a wrong answer with math. It's simple that way, so I like it. Feel free to judge everyone xD

**JJ-** Omg, I just used Cardcaptor Sakura as an example, thinking you wouldn't have watched it but you have. I do like the japanese version more because they cut out all the SakuraxSyaoran moments in the english version. I feel like Kou's crush on Kurapika is kinda like Sakura crushing on her brother's friend (forgot his name). But yeah, I do see where you are coming from. Kurapika isn't going to appear in this arc at all, I might decide to add him in the Election arc, but if I don't then he won't really have a moment with Kou until I write the sequel to this. Until then, it just has to be Kou and Killua I'm afraid.

And a voice actress? Let me scan my anime database! [One Eternity later] Okay, I'll be honest, I couldn't think of a thirteen year old that isn't too nice for their own good. I mean Sakura is too sweet and innocent, then I thought of Ichigo from Yumeiro Patisserie and all other young shojou protagonists, but they all seemed a little to soft spoken. Then I Kagura from Gintama (one of my all time favourite anime), and I feel like her voice would fit right in. She is quite silly, simpleminded and outgoing but at the same time her voice portrays that a sense of childishness and innocence. Kagura doesn't really get angry that often but she can seriously lose her shit when provoked which once again fits in. The name of the voice actress is Rie Kugimiya by the way, and she also voiced Taiga (Toradora), Happy (Fairy Tail), Nemu and Karin (Bleach), Al (FMA) and a lot of others. Just youtube Gintama Kagura's rap to hear what kind of voice I'm talking about. You'll see my point.

**JokeLover123-** Nope, I didn't come up with it actually, it's a japanese urban legend. I'm kinda glad there is someone who can relate to Himeko though as I'm trying to make her relatable, although I over exaggerate a lot of the time. This chapter had more interactions, and spoiler alert (not really) there are more interactions coming up this arc!

**Last Future of Embryo-** I love Palm, she always reminded me of that girl from The Ring and because Himeko's scared of ghosts I really wanted them to interact like this.

And that's actually really cool! I really want more HunterxHunter, but it must really be hard for Togashi to do all the work by himself. I mean his wife created Sailor Moon and could help him, but he is still doing all his work by himself without a team or anything. 2016 isn't too far away now, so I hope you are right! In a way it was smart for MadHouse to end it after the election arc so the series looked a little complete, but if you continue reading the manga you can clearly tell that there is a lot left.

**havanatitiana-** I'm glad the previous chapter made you laugh xD

**Jikola-** Hmm.. is Killua jumpy because he was surprised that Kou came out of no where or is it because of something else? I'm guessing Himeko would have teased him and then made it awkward.

I can't remember the name of the movie, but it has a lot of Kurapika in it. It was a little after Yorkshin though!

And Togashi is quite young, so I wouldn't worry too much. He's been stressing and overworking himself during YYH, but he'll return eventually. Like he always did. Then he trolls us again by going on another hiatus.

**SlightlyYandereMelissa-** Yeah, sure! Call me L, Lu, Lucy, Luciya, anything is fine tbh! And it's good to know my sense of humour is good enough to make you laugh XD

**Queechi-** What's the point of toilet paper that gives you paper cuts? That would be the most useless invention ever. I thinking pretending to be mute is the best idea, but I know I'd probably die by guilt tripping the ghost by pointing out that I'm in a girls toilet or that I'm a girl in a toilet and he's a pervert for offering me toilet paper.

You forgot Leorio as Brook, pre Yorkshin Kurapika as Nurse Joy, badass Kurapika as Officer Jenny and team rocket consisting of Hisoka and Illumi with a little pet mascot (maybe Chrollo). Actually, forget the team rocket idea! And yeah, I get the Masterball reference, but I'm not sure if Kou would be able to find it considering how much I had to look for a Masterball on the ds games.

**Hikari. AA-** Thanks for the review, I'm glad you liked the chapter ^^


	53. Demon

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 53**

_Demon_

_..._

Himeko pointed straight ahead at the couple walking in the distance, so Killua could eventually spot them. Once he spotted the pair, he dragged Himeko along and followed them, making sure not to lose them this time around. Gon and Palm moved out of the busy town centre to a much quieter area that seemed very familiar to Killua. Of course, this was where Gon brought them on the previous day to pick up some kind of stick he was going to give Palm. Killua wasn't sure why he was planning to give Palm a branch with no leafs instead of a bouquet of flowers, but hey, Gon should have experience with these things. After all, he was the one who went on dates while Killua had zero experience when it came to dates or women in general.

Gon and Palm found a place close to the a lake, while Himeko and Killua hid behind the bushes not too far away from them. They were close enough to hear exactly what Gon and Palm were talking about. Gon laid out a picnic chair for Palm to sit on, so her dress didn't get dirty. He waited for her to sit down first, before putting aside his rucksack and sitting beside her. Himeko sat there assessing his every move, being astonished by how much of a gentleman Gon truly was. "Look Killua, you should learn a thing or two from Gon," she whispered to him.

"Shush!" Killua tried to shut her up before turning his attention back to Gon and Palm. Killua noticed that Gon started to look around the sky. He reached for his rucksack and got out that exact branch he picked out with Killua on the previous day and handed it to Palm.

Palm just gave him a confused expression, "what is this?"

"The most beautiful bouquet that exists," Gon said, smiling. Palm was still confused and examined the branch over and over again to see whether she was missing something, "just wait!"

"A stick?" Himeko whispered over to Killua, "do you know what's going on?"

But he was just as clueless as her, "nope," he answered, shaking his head in response. The pair waited to see what was going to happen next, but Gon seemed to be waiting for something himself. He looked up ahead at that lone tree standing at the centre of the lake to see the fireflies resting in the tree light up. Some started flying towards them, specifically towards Palm. She held up the branch Gon handed her earlier to see the fireflies settling down on it, almost making it look like a miniature tree decorated with fairy lights.

"The tree produces a special sap that attracts the fireflies," Gon explained, calmly watching the fireflies resting on the small branch.

_"Yuck!"_ Killua exclaimed, fake gagging, _"since when was Gon this cheesy?"_ He looked over to see that Palm was awestruck by Gon's little stunt. Figures, he thought. Palm was probably one of the only people on the planet who would be so easily impressed by something so simple. To prove his point, he glanced at Himeko squatting right beside him and to his surprise she seemed equally impressed as Palm.

"Arww, that was so romantic," she dreamily sighed while staring at the sparkly bouquet in Palm's hands, "Gon can be so cute sometimes," she then turned to Killua and gave him a disapproving look, "I still don't get how you two are friends. I mean look at you, and look at him. You should learn a couple of things from Gon!" Killua felt a little insulted by her comment, but he had heard so much worse from her. "Why has Gon never given me a bouquet like that? I mean my birthday was in December!"

Killua took a brief moment to analyse the situation. What if the person Himeko liked was Gon? After all, Himeko mumbled something about her crush being someone he knew well, but that thought was quickly scrapped after he imagined those two together as a couple. Just like in one of those overly cheesy sitcoms, Himeko would be that bossy and lazy housewife always complaining about something, while Gon would be the innocent, hard working husband being caught up in all the arguments. He just ended up cringing at the mix matched combination of the two. Besides, he knew that Gon did hold a special place in her heart, but more as a lucky charm. She wasn't the only one who thought that way though, Gon held a special place in many people's lives, including Killua's. That was Gon, it was very hard to dislike someone like him.

Just then, both their attentions were brought away from Gon and Palm enjoying their day out to something sinister that seemed to be lurking out in the woods not too far off from the lake.

"Killua!" Himeko tried to keep her voice as low as possible, but knowing that there was something so close to them alerted them both. There was a brief silence between the two, but it didn't take long for them to confirm that there was a strong ant out there. "It's definitely an ant, and it's aura is strong. If we don't do something, it will get closer to us."

"I know!" Killua almost snapped at Himeko's very obvious comments, "we can't let it come closer to Gon, not when he is like this. I'll distract it, you stay here and watch Gon!"

Killua was about to leave, but Himeko grabbed his wrist and pulled him back down. Gon wasn't her only worry. There was defenceless Gon, on a date with a crazy woman who could snap anytime soon, and there was also Killua who's mind was filled with insecurities. The last time she saw him fight, he didn't look like the Killua she knew from the Hunter exams, or even Yorkshin. He seemed to have lost confidence in his own abilities, and with that Himeko wasn't too happy to let Killua leave on his own. She didn't deny the fact that he was strong and could defeat that ant with no effort, but not right now. There were some thoughts he had to sort out, and although going out there could potentially help him do just that and cure him from his fear, it could also lead to his death.

Himeko wasn't comfortable telling Killua all that. Although she liked to pull pranks on him, and throw some insults at him, it didn't change the fact that she respected him as a fighter, and she believed in him as a fighter. "Let's decide on who gets to go just like real Hunters!" She wasn't too hard to read, she was obviously hesitant to let him go and fight whatever was out there and Killua understood that. He didn't even know whether he could trust himself to fight whatever is out there anymore, but on the other hand he also believed that this was something he should do alone. "Don't get me wrong Killua, but I honestly think that you should stay back and watch over Gon while I go and fight the ant. I promise not to drag it out, I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

"Fine, if you win you can go." Killua finally managed to give in. They had no time to waste anyway, and trying to disagree with her right now would just waste time. The easiest way for the two to solve this is to go along with whatever Himeko had to say, and it all came down to luck.

Wasting no more time, the pair initiated their so called way of solving things like 'real Hunters', "rock, paper, scissors!"

"I guess I win," he said, before repeating what she had told him a moment ago, "I won't drag it out, I'll be back in a couple of minutes so watch Gon while I'm gone." It was a way of him telling her that he was old enough to look after himself, and that he was just as capable as she was. With no other words, Killua left into the woods trying to divert the attention of the Chimera ant onto him, leaving Himeko behind to keep an eye on Gon.

_"Damn it, I should have picked paper!"_ Himeko cursed as she watched Killua leave on his own. She then let out a sigh and fixed her eyes back at Gon and Palm. But although Killua wanted her to have some faith in him, she couldn't help but worry. Especially since whatever was out there won't be as nice as Shoot when they fight.

With Gon being left in the safe hands of Himeko, Killua was somewhat relieved. At least one of his worries was sorted out, and he knew that that he nothing could get close to Gon while he was being watched over. But that didn't change the fact that he now had to go against whatever was out there. The closer he got to the aura, the more his heart started to pound. Fighting was something he did since he was a child; you could say that he was taught how to fight before he was taught how to walk. Violence seemed almost natural to him after being exposed to it for all his life, yet it never scared him as much as it did right now. He was the destined heir of the Zoldycks; even his surname could give people a run for their money. But for someone who was supposed to be so powerful, and have a title that held so much honour, Killua felt so little. He knew that there was a big chance for him to get crushed like an ant, but at the same time he wanted to change. He didn't want everyone around him to grow up and become stronger, leaving him behind in the dust. What he was most afraid of was not being able to protect the people that meant so much to him.

Once Killua got there, he stopped and looked ahead. Out of the bushes a familiar figure came out. An ant with the head of a rabbit and the body of a shrike he came across before, yet the same ant felt so unfamiliar. An aura was oozing out of Rammot that was strong enough to be sensed from miles away. All that was motivated by one thing; Rammot wanted to find the three Hunters that humiliated him that one day, and he wanted to kill them with his bare hands. Now that the Queen was dead, the ants were all over the place. Most of them have gone their own ways, and since there was nothing to stop them anymore, they were out to cause more trouble than usual. Rammot was one of them, there was no one who could stop him now that he found Killua. All he wanted to do now was kill him, and hope to find Gon and Himeko lurking around somewhere close-by. To kill them was the only way to calm his rage.

Rammot immediately recognised Killua. He remembered that lightening attack that left him paralysed in the air before Gon got a chance to attack. All Rammot wanted now was revenge, but just killing Killua all at once wouldn't do it for him. He wanted to drag it out, torture him slowly before giving him a slow and agonising death. That new, murderous look on Rammot's face alarmed Killua, but he kept reminding himself that he had to protect Gon. He was determined, but that didn't stop the voice in his head to discourage him. His mind went blank; there it was again.

_"Run,"_ he could hear Illumi's voice echoing through his head. He flinched at the sound of his voice, but Killua clenched his teeth tightly and stayed put. His whole body was trembling from how tensed he was and he started sweating buckets of cold sweat. But the fight still hasn't even began yet. From what looked like a focused expression, he couldn't help but stare back at his opponent with his dilated and alarmed eyes.

Rammot's expression changed, his lip curved upwards seeing Killua's current state. A helpless prey that was caught and cornered by his predator; that's how he saw him. Killua was his prey, shivering in front of him; his predator. To him, it was amusing to see the same little boy that fearlessly fought him a month ago so close to falling on his knees in fear. "That terrified expression; that's it! I love it, it's getting me excited to tear you apart."

Killua's breathing became heavier hearing that voice again, _"you can't defeat him, he is stronger than you."_

He was frozen stiff, there was nothing he could do about his opponent slowly getting closer to him. His body wouldn't let him fight, it would only allow him to run away.

"I can't run away, I have to defeat him." Killua tried to fight Illumi's voice, but his brother's voice always seemed to have the upper hand.

_"You don't know how strong your opponent is."_

"I have to protect Gon," Killua was stuck in between Rammot and Illumi. He was aware of the fact that Rammot was just a couple of feet away from him, but his concentration was solely fixed on trying to get Illumi's voice out of his head. He wanted a clear mind, he didn't want to keep running away. He wanted to fight. He wanted to protect Gon.

Rammot waited for no one, he just wanted to slowly end the life of the boy he had been searching for a month. Now that he found him, he wasn't going to show mercy. He didn't care about the fact that Killua couldn't fight back, it was a lot more amusing for him this way. With one punch in the face, Killua flew back and landed on the ground, face down. However, he immediately crawled back up onto his feet, giving Rammot that same expression that excited Rammot in the first place. His eyes were filled with both anger and fear. Killua took another hit, and one more, and Rammot seemed to be giving him no chance to recover. Hit after hit, Killua was trying to stay up, but Rammot made sure to keep him on his knees by stomping on his torso.

"Did you lose your spine?" he asked, not expecting a reply, "or did you piss yourself? Why aren't you getting up?" Whether or not he was getting back up didn't matter at all, Rammot was enjoying it either way. "Damn, this feels so good!" A sadistic grin formed on Rammot's face. Killua was nothing more than a punching bag to the ant that wanted to settle a score. "This is so much fun."

Killua was once again kicked away and unintentionally given a moment to rest, before Rammot prepared for another round. He started taking slow steps towards him, trying to control himself from killing Killua all at once. But suddenly, he felt something hard land on his head and stopped momentarily. He looked down to see a green apple laying beside his feet. Rammot stepped on it in anger, squashing the unripened fruit as it interrupted him. He then proceeded to what he originally wanted to do.

Seeing his opponent getting closer, Killua took a big step back. _"Run,"_ that authoritative voice repeated.

"I can't."

_"Run."_

No matter how much he tried, Illumi's voice continued to repeat the same words over and over again, asserting dominance. Not being able to get a grip of his own thoughts, Killua felt helpless. He felt pathetic, weak, foolish, maybe he should have been the one staying back and watching over Gon. Himeko would have finished this joker off and come back already; or that's what he told himself. But at the same time, he swore to protect his friend, "I have to protect Gon, I want to protect my friend," he cried.

_"You can't, you are too weak!"_

Not being able to do anything, Killua bursted into tears in frustration. It was painful, wanting to fight, wanting to win but not being able to do anything but getting beat up. He looked up at Rammot with his watery eyes, only to catch him off guard. In front of him, Killua looked so powerless. As a sadist, Rammot couldn't help but want to tear him apart just then and there although he wanted to give him a slow and painful death. He couldn't decide, and in the end he decided on only wanting to keep his head with that defenceless expression.

Hearing Illumi repeat the same words again and again, Killua started to fight it, "shut up!"

_"Run."_

"I won't listen to you!"

_"Run... run away... run..."_

"Shut up!"

_"Run away."_

_"_Gon is my friend."

_"Run."_

Illumi's voice persistently ordered him to run away, but Killua tried to ignore it. He thought hard, back when he entered the Hunter exam by himself, but when he took the exam he wasn't alone. How he was sent back to his estate back in Kukuroo mountain, but when he came back out he wasn't lonely anymore. He reminded himself how much fun it was fighting at Heaven's arena for the second time because Gon was there with him, although the first time when he went alone was much more challenging. He remembered how reckless his friends were and how he had to keep a calm head while at Yorkshin city. He was reminded of how he survived the meeting with one of the most notorious bandits out there, but even then he wasn't alone. He thought back to the time when the video game he played with a friend was a lot more fun than all the other ones he played by himself back home, even though he cleared them all numerous times.

These memories were something he didn't want to lose. He wanted to hold onto them, but memories weren't enough for him. He wanted to keep holding onto his friends and make new memories with them in the future. All that was enough to make Illumi's voice fade away until it became almost inaudible over Gon's encouraging voice.

Rammot reached in to attack, but after a loud scream, Killua was gone. He disappeared, and Rammot was frantically searching the area for him. _"Where did he go?"_

Hearing a quiet laughter behind him, Rammot turned around to see his opponent standing behind him with his back turned towards him. Killua looked at the little needle in his palm, covered in his own blood. As he looked down, blood started to drip down from his forehead but he just continued to let out his relieved chuckle. "He had me fooled good."

The demon was finally gone, and Killua crushed the needle into pieces to put an end to that chapter of his life.

"How did you dodge that?" Rammot asked, before recalling what he managed to see in that split second. Before he could even aim for his throat, Killua jammed his fingers into his forehead and pulled something out before vanishing. But whatever that may have been, he knew that his opponent was different now. He looked a lot more alert, and his fear was no where to be seen anymore. It's as if the scared little boy from earlier completely vanished and was replaced with this more confident lookalike.

"I feel so much more refreshed now," Killua stretched with a satisfied smile on his face. Seeing him like that, Rammot had a lot of thoughts running through his head. Now that Killua wasn't so afraid anymore, he became anxious. His confidence disappeared and before he knew it, just the change in Killua's attitude scared him. Just when he was about to laugh the whole situation off as some sort of gimmick, the look in Killua's eyes said otherwise. His dead eyes and murderous aura reached deep into Rammot's soul, sending shivers down his spine. "I have a message for all the other ants. If you mess with us, I will kill you." It didn't sound like a bluff. The tables had turned; Rammot who had the upper hand felt cornered. Staring into Killua's eyes, he saw the reflection of himself; Killua's next prey.

Having had the upper hand thus far, Rammot didn't want to believe his own eyes. He was in denial, "I'm not buying this bullshit!"

"Very well," Killua charged towards Rammot, decapitating him with no effort. It took Rammot some time to realise what situation he was in. He glanced back, and saw his headless body standing behind him. "Don't bother in that case." Killua ended the fight by crushing Rammot's head before disposing it in one of the nearby bushes. He stuck around a little longer, trying to use _En_ to check whether another ant was hiding, watching the fight just like last time. Killua picked up one of the fallen apples from the ground and threw it towards one of the apple trees close to him. As expected, he heard a loud thud; something fell to the ground and it was definitely bigger than a squirrel. Killua cautiously made his way to where the sound came from, still prepared to fight. With one hand ready to attack, he moved away the bush branches to reveal who just fell.

"Calm down, it's just me!" Himeko protected her face with her arms in case Killua actually did attack, but seeing her he didn't.

"Don't scare me like that," he let out an annoyed sigh. Himeko looked at his sharp claws. She knew Killua wasn't going to kill her using those, but looking at those still paranoid her, she was the one supposed to be scared. It had been quite a long time since she had seen Killua's switched turned on, and from a front row seat as well. Maybe it was his _Ren_ that was strong enough to reach her. In any case, Rammot wasn't the only one who became anxious. Himeko too was slightly frightened by his serious mode; maybe because she still wasn't so used to it. Killua reached out his hand to help her back up on her feet, "here, get up."

Himeko briefly took a glimpse of Killua's knife-like claws once again, following the traces of the ant's fresh blood dripping down his hands. That was more than enough to get her to shoot back up on her feet with no assistance, leaving Killua dumbfounded with his hand still stuck out.

"D-don't worry, I can get up myself," she stuttered, before nervously laughing, still staring at his sharp claws. "Killua, you might wanna consider getting a manicure! Ha...ha...ha..."

Killua just then noticed his fingernails, "sorry, it's a habit," he apologised before changing his nails back to normal. "That reminds me, aren't you supposed to be watching Gon? Why did you leave him alone?"

"Gon can handle Palm. If he couldn't then we wouldn't be alive now," she reminded him, thinking back to all those moments Palm was about to snap and Gon smoothly calming her down. "I was more worried about you, not knowing what was out here in the woods. Turns out it was that creepy ant from last month."

"You should've just stayed back, I didn't need any help."

"I wasn't here to help you," Himeko pointed out. "I promised Bisky that I wouldn't interrupt your battles and I kept that promise. Otherwise I would have intervened long ago, before you started getting beat up. I just did what Bisky asked me to do, I watched over you so you didn't get hurt."

"I still got hurt though."

"Touché," she defeatedly commented, "if it got to the point where you couldn't handle him anymore, I would have stepped in. That aside, are you alright? Your forehead is bleeding quite a lot."

"It was Illumi all along," Killua informed her with a relieved smile, "he planted a needle into my forehead and that's how he manipulated me by making me think that my opponents were all stronger than me. I managed to get it out though."

Hearing that this was just another dumb trick by Killua's older brother, Himeko felt speechless. "So it was your brother that did all this. His cheap trick nearly killed you today." No matter how many times Killua tried to cut ties with his family business, Illumi just remained persistent. She sighed, "at least you are okay now. Plus, you are back to your normal self!"

"Yeah," Killua smiled back. The two exchanged awkward smiles before one of them remembered Gon and Palm. "Aren't we supposed to be watching over Gon?"

"Oh yeah..." As soon as they remembered leaving Gon alone with Palm, the two rushed back to the lake where they remembered the couple being.

"By the way, why throw an apple?" Killua curiously asked, recalling that an apple fell on Rammot's head from the same tree Himeko was sitting on.

"Have you heard of that saying where an apple a day keeps the doctor away?" Himeko questioned, "well, apples can keep anyone away as long as you throw them hard enough. It doesn't just apply to doctors."

_"Why did I even bother asking," _Killua mentally face-palmed at the predictably lame reply he got from her, yet he couldn't help but find it amusing. It wasn't just her response that made him smile, the fact that she was worried about him also bought a momentary smile to his face. After reaching the lake, the pair discovered that both Gon and Palm were gone, but Gon's backpack and the foldable chair Palm was sitting on were still there. The two continued to look for any other traces, but that was pretty much all they found. "Could it have been another ant?" Killua wondered.

"No, that can't be!" Himeko immediately objected. "I did leave those two behind, but I made sure that there were no other ants around. If there was someone else here, I would've known for sure!"

Seeing how confident she was, Killua only came up with one possible reason behind both their disappearances. "Let's head back to the apartment!"

If no ant was the cause of the missing Gon and Palm, the only logical explanation would be that Palm finally lost it. They couldn't blame her though, no matter how sweet Gon was, he didn't know how to lie. It was one of his good traits, but at the same time when it came to Palm, being overly honest with her could make him end up in a lot of trouble. Especially since it took a lot of convincing for Palm to calm down and put that large knife away the other day. That date with Gon was the only reason she agreed to behave in the first place. If Gon messed this up, it could end up badly for all three of them.

As soon as they arrived outside the apartment, Himeko came to a hold. She looked up and immediately got a bad feeling in the gut seeing the curtains of their apartment being closed. "Hey, how about I stay here and watch the door for us," Himeko suggested, trying her best to persuade Killua to let her stay outside where it was nice and safe, "you never know, Palm might have called for backup!"

She had a tendency to ramble when she was nervous, so Killua knew too well that all he had to do was ignore her. He grabbed her by her wrist and dragged her along to the room they were staying in. To their surprise, the door wasn't closed; it was ajar. Killua slowly opened the door and stepped inside, dragging Himeko who was resisting with him. The lights were off, curtains were closed and only a couple of candles illuminated the spacious living room. Gon was on the floor, obediently writing 'I'm sorry' over and over again, in big, bold writing and surrounding him were the dozens of apology notes he wrote so far. Watching him was Palm, standing in front of him with her butcher knife.

Palm was the first one to notice the door opening, and turned around to see that Killua and Himeko had returned from wherever they've been. Awestruck by Gon's sight, Killua was the first one to rush in, "what are you doing?!"

"What do you mean, can't you tell just by looking?" Palm asked him in return, "I'm punishing him for toying with my feelings!"

"What the hell?!" Killua raised his brow as if Palm just said the most ridiculous thing he had heard all day, "you are the one being completely unreasonable!"

"Stop sticking your noses into our business. This is something between us, leave us alone."

The argument between Killua and Palm was going no where, and Himeko just quietly watched them going back and forth while Gon silently continued to write his apologies. Knowing that this wasn't going to end anytime soon at this rate, she stepped in, "I'm sure we can talk this out, I mean there must be some kind of misunderstanding here," and although this was probably the most reasonable and intelligent thing she said all day, no one in the room cared about her opinion in this matter.

"Maybe you should be the one leaving us alone," Killua shot right back, "why don't you just get lost?"

That was enough to make Palm's face darken, and it alarmed both Himeko and Killua. _"Oh crap, please don't snap! Please don't snap!" _Palm who was about to lose it completely somehow managed to remain collected and examined the pair.

"Why are you injured?" She started to interrogate Killua, after noticing the wound on his forehead.

"I was training," Killua went with the same lie they told them last night, "everyone gets hurt while training once in a while."

His answer was believable, and although Palm wasn't too satisfied with it she shifted her target, knowing she could get more out of Himeko than Killua. "What about you, why aren't you in your gym clothes?" She asked, looking at the surprisingly girly outfit she was wearing; the last thing someone like Himeko would wear to work out at the gym. With Palm's intimidating gaze, her mind went completely blank and she didn't know how to answer.

"I-I," she stuttered, trying to think of an excuse that could work.

"Her gym clothes got dirty, so I came back and got her a change of clothes."

"Right..." Whether she believed their excuses or not didn't matter at this point, these two were clearly getting in between her and Gon's so called relationship. That was more than enough reason for her to get rid of them. "Why don't I injure you some more in that case?" Palm's first hit was aimed at Killua, who in her eyes was the biggest nuisance of them all. He on the other hand managed to dodge the attack with no effort at all.

"I could dodge that attack in my sleep," he commented confidently. Palm's hands were shaking uncontrollably having missed that attack. The trio's eyes were fixed on Palm waiting for her next move, and even Gon stopped whatever he was doing because of all the commotion around him.

"I was so sure I got him this time," she mumbled under her breath. The next moment, Palm went ballistic. Himeko being the closest to the front door was the first one to run out of the apartment screaming. Killua didn't hesitate either and ran after her, carrying Gon with him. Not wanting to let those three rascals get away, Palm decided to chase after them with that large butcher knife of hers.

Himeko had no idea which way she was going, she just wanted to get as far away as possible from Palm and Killua; who was Palm's main target. Little did the others actually know that she was just blindly running away and they followed her, much to her displeasure. She kept looking back once in a while, trying to check how far away Killua, Gon and Palm were from her. "Wait, I'll kill you!" Palm screamed, still hot on their trail. She was a lot faster than she looked due to being fuelled by that ambition to murder Killua and Himeko.

Killua looked back and saw that Palm had gotten dangerously close to them, yet he decided to insult her even more, "catch us if you can, you stupid old hag!"

"I'll kill you!" Palm screamed back in response.

The fact that Killua decided to act like an immature brat when they were chased by an angry, heartbroken woman with a knife annoyed the hell out of Himeko. "You fucking idiot, she's already out to kill us! Would you just shut the fuck up and run?!"

Gon couldn't help but feel like he was surrounded by idiots at this point, "she has a point Killua, you are just making her even more angry," he added calmly.

"Yeah, Killua! Maybe you should hold her up and distract her while I get Gon out of here," Himeko suggested, "come on, take one for the team. Be a man!"

"No, why don't you do it?"

"She's more pissed at you. If we split up now, she'd chase after you!"

"Does this really matter now?" he asked, "if we ditch her now, we'll never see her again. We just have to call Knuckle and let him know that we are meeting him somewhere else."

"I want to go back!" Gon interrupted their conversation.

"Are you out of your mind, Gon?!" Killua almost yelled at him, "she's after us to kill us."

"She won't kill us."

"Gon, she's chasing us with a goddamn butcher knife!" Himeko pointed out, "have you seen the size of that thing. It's massive!"

Palm had a great start, but she couldn't keep up with them for too long. It was almost too easy for the trio to escape, but Palm hadn't given up yet. She knew that those three could keep running for hours before getting tired, but they couldn't hide from her. She went back to their apartment and took out her purple crystal ball, held by a small, stone mermaid statue. After slitting her wrist, she poured some drops of her red blood onto the crystal ball before chanting a spell. "Cute, cute, mermaid, show me where those foolish brats have run off to." In the crystal ball, the location of Gon, Killua and Himeko could be seen. They seemed to be trying to figure out a plan in front of a hotel not too far away. With her rage filled eyes, she stared at the image of Killua and Himeko in her crystal, "those stupid brats, always intervening. If it wasn't for them, everything would have gone fine. I will find them!"

Determined to put an end to their lives, Palm gathered all the knives she had arranged in the kitchen drawers and prepared to go after them. But as soon as she ran out, she ran into someone unexpected. It was her beloved Knov-sensei. Before she knew it, her mission to get rid of the trio was aborted. She had given up on that.

The very next day, Gon, Himeko and Killua were in town discussing what to do next. They still had some time left until they were supposed to meet with Knuckle and the rest. Staring into space wasn't an option but that was all they could do for now until they came up with something. Killua suddenly got a sudden craving for his favourite chocolate, so all three of them bought a couple of packets of choco robots.

Himeko opened her second box and peeked inside to check what toy she got, only to be confused. "Hey, there's no toy in this box!"

"Hmm... sucks to be you then," Killua commented indifferently before opening his third box, only to be a little disappointed himself. "That's the third one today," he said, putting away the little grey toy robot into his pocket. He curiously turned to see what Gon's luck was like. Unsurprisingly, Gon was the luckiest out of all three. "Gon, that's the rarest toy. It's a collectors item, you can sell it for a lot of money on auctions."

"Really?" Gon asked, taking a closer look at this so called rare item. It didn't look like anything out of the ordinary, just a toy that was gold in colour. He was never interested in toys, neither did Gon ever have any interest in money. He handed it over to Killua, knowing he was a fan of this particular chocolate brand, "here, you can have this!" Killua quickly found himself rejecting the offer. He didn't need money either, his family had mountains of it. The only reason he saved up money was to buy sweets, and he was already satisfied with the chocolate he had bought. "Do you want it, Kou?" Gon asked her.

She of course gladly accepted Gon's offer and safely put the little toy away after thanking Gon, and earning a remark from Killua. "Greedy pig!"

To his surprise, it didn't affect her as much as he thought it would. "Money doesn't grow on trees Killua," she simply shrugged off, "you two are just too easily satisfied."

Her statement had some truth to it, so Killua didn't say anything back to her. Instead he just stared at the uneaten packet of chocolate she held in her hand. "You gonna eat that?"

"No, you can have it," she passed it over.

Gon somehow found the atmosphere strange. It seemed almost too normal, it had been so long since he had seen Killua and Himeko act like their usual selves. Since that loss to Knuckle and Shoot, the two seemed a little more introverted and overly worried. It was strange, yet it somehow set Gon's mind at peace. "Did something good happen?"

Killua stopped chewing to look at his friend and a big grin appeared on his face, "nothing out of the ordinary, right?" He looked at Himeko for an agreement.

"Yep, nothing out of the ordinary!" She returned the huge grin.

"I know!" Killua suddenly shot up from his seat "we should hit the gym!"

Gon nodded in agreement, "and we are taking Kou with us today. We still don't know how much stronger she's gotten."

Killua took the lead while Gon happily went along, dragging Himeko behind him. When Gon was around, Himeko didn't really have any other choice anyway. She didn't exactly mind though, it had been so long since she trained together with the two of them, so she looked forward to training with them again. However, none of them knew that Shoot and Knov were watching them from the distance, trying to check up on their mental state to see whether the trio were ready to see what has become of Kite.

* * *

**A/n-** Part 1 of the double update :D


	54. Infiltration

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 54**

_Infiltration_

_..._

Later on that day, Knuckle contacted Gon and informed him that they could finally see Kite again. Shoot and Knov had followed the trio around for hours, trying to see whether they were mentally stable enough to see Kite in his current state. Gon in particular was monitored, and after seeing how they enjoyed their day out in town just like normal teenagers, and trained hard in the gym they came to the conclusion that they would be able to handle it. Gon, Killua and Himeko left the gym immediately and rushed to the said place where they met up with Morel, Knov, Shoot, Toshiro, Natsume and Knuckle. The area was isolated from the rest and was situated in a rather quiet part of the town. The trio was led inside a run down brick house, down the stairs and finally into a large, empty room with dim lighting. In front of them was a small bird cage, one that didn't look too unfamiliar to some of them.

"Kite isn't like how he used to be," Morel informed the trio once again. Knuckle, Natsume and Knov had mentioned this quite a couple of times already, so Gon, Killua and Himeko grew anxious to see what actually happened to Kite. Based on how they handled this, Kite appeared to be in a very critical condition; but he wasn't dead yet. That alone was a reason for Gon to agree to all this.

"It doesn't matter," Gon answered with no second thoughts, "we will find a way to heal him." His answer sounded confident; he was determined to cure Kite. But at the same time, there was some fear in his eyes not knowing how badly hurt Kite really was.

Shoot used his Nen to open the gate of the cage, while everyone witnessed a miniature Kite stepping out. Once he was outside the cage, his body started to grow back to it's original size. As it grew, the scars and wounds that covered his upper body because more visible. His movements were strange; almost as if his body was dangling on a set of puppet strings. When he finally looked up, a single eye peeked through the long, silver hair covering his face. That absentminded look on his face bothered Gon the most. His breathing became uneven and heavy, but with everyone else around him, he tried his best calming himself down. "Kite..." he muttered his name, with a guilt filled voice.

"He was most probably used to train ant soldiers," Knuckle explained, "if you approach him, he automatically attacks."

Although he just heard what Knuckle said, Gon still approached Kite slowly, one step at a time. "It will be okay," he reassured as he got closer to him. Kite remained still, watching Gon get closer to him step by step, but once he was in a close enough range, Kite threw a punch. Not anticipating it, Gon took a hit and the area above his brows started to bleed. Gon knew that this wasn't actually Kite punching him with his own will, but that didn't stop him from recalling his first meeting with Kite. Back on Whale island, the little seven year old got punched by Kite just like this, but back then it was because he did a mistake. However, although Gon didn't do anything wrong this time around he still felt like he deserved that punch. "Do you remember, this isn't the first time you hit me. You hit me back on Whale Island too. That hurt a lot!" Kite remained unresponsive, and Gon approached Kite once again only to be hit once more. He took the hit with no complaint, and approached Kite yet again. Kite being programmed to hurt anyone that got closed to him, hit Gon over and over again, and the others could only watch the painful sight.

"Are you two just going to watch and let this beating continue?" Morel asked, noticing that neither Killua nor Himeko had made an effort to help their friend out. "Gon can't use his _Nen_ to defend himself, right?"

"It's okay, he will notice soon," Killua assured everyone, "maybe he already has."

"Kite's moves are robotic, they are easy to predict after a couple of punches." Natsume pointed out. "He was programmed to do it this way, he doesn't seem to have a will of his own."

Knov listened to everyone's conversation while quietly observing Kite's fighting style. There wasn't much of a technique to it, only a certain pattern he kept repeating over and over again. Natsume was right, it was quite easy to figure out depending on how experienced you were as a fighter._ "Perhaps he's suppressing his reflexes and allows himself to get hit,"_ he thought.

Knuckle on the other hand thought otherwise. With no _Nen, _Gon wasn't able to defend himself. That aside, seeing Kite in this state must have been a shock to the trio although they aren't trying to show it. Those two reasons were more than enough for Gon to be in a state unable to dodge the attacks, no matter how easy they were to anticipate.

_"Gon is doing this on purpose." _Deep inside, Himeko knew that Gon was capable of being able to anticipate his attacks by now. Gon may be simple minded sometimes, but he was sharp. If she was able to predict the next move by now, she knew that Gon would've figured it out much sooner than she did. She knew too well that Gon willingly stayed still and took all the hits on purpose. _"He doesn't know what else to do." _Kite created an opportunity for them, the weaker links to escape, and they did as they were asked to do. It was something Kite wanted them to do, but at the same time Kite might have not been in this state if it weren't for them. The trip started out fine, but it took them some time to realise that they might have just been dead weight Kite had to carry around during his journey. She couldn't blame Gon for feeling guilty, she felt just as guilty as him, but she could also imagine how hard it must have been for Gon to see his fatherly figure like this. Not only must he have felt like he disappointed Kite, Gon must have also felt like he disappointed Ging. In the end, Himeko could do no more than just helplessly watch Gon get beaten by Kite over and over again. It's something Gon wanted, it was his way of trying to get punished for a sin he had committed and knowing this, she couldn't interrupt him. Knowing Gon, he would eventually be satisfied by the number of times he got attacked and stop but she didn't know how long that would take. Until then, she would just have to wait and see.

Killua felt the same way, having to stand still while his best friend was getting beaten up wasn't something he could bear for this long. Yet he remained still knowing that this was something Gon chose to do, and he respected his decision. _"After all, we brought this upon ourselves and this is the reality we have to face now."_

Just like what some of them predicted, Gon knew Kite's upcoming moves but decided to stay still and get hit on purpose. However, the more he got hit, the more it angered him. This wasn't Kite, it wasn't like Kite at all. The robotic movements, the predictable attacks, the weak punches; the Kite he knew was a lot stronger. No matter how much Kite kept punching him, Gon didn't feel hurt. The punch he remembered was powerful, it had an impact on him. That one punch created an impression that Kite was no ordinary Hunter; he was one of the strongest Hunters Gon had ever met. And for him to be Ging's disciple made him a role model to him. The weak punches this controlled Kite threw were almost pathetic, Gon thought of these as an embarrassment to the actual Kite. That was when Gon finally decided to dodge Kite's attack.

Ceasing that opportunity, Gon embraced Kite. "I'm sorry, Kite. It's our fault that this happened to you." Those words lingered in his mind since they left Kite behind in NGL, and finally Gon was able to say it directly to Kite. "We will find a way to get you back to normal, so please wait for us."

Kite's body stiffened when as soon as he was touched, and noticing this Gon let go and looked at his face. Something Gon was not able to see was the appearance of a large creature above Kite. A puppeteer holding strings that were attached to Kite's body.

"This is level two, it is activated when someone touches him." Knuckle explained. "Kite's _Nen_ has already been blocked by me, so whatever that is must belong to the person that's controlling him. Be careful though, now that level two is activated Kite will be much stronger. He will attack if you approach him again."

"How were you able to stop him?" Gon asked, but he felt like he already knew the answer.

"We had to injure him badly to get him to stop attacking us," Shoot admitted regretfully, hinting at the numerous scars that were present on Kite's upper body. For a moment, Gon felt tears forming in his eyes but that feeling of sadness just disappeared. He grew furious, furious of what Kite had to go through back at NGL. Furious of how Kite had to be 'saved' and brought back home, all because they abandoned him.

"Just wait a little longer," Gon turned back around and headed towards the stairs leading back up. On his way he was facing the ground, so his expression couldn't be seen. But once he got to Killua, Gon stopped and looked up. That frightening look on his face sent shivers up some of their spines. Gon was the last person they expected to look so outraged, and it definitely was a massive shock to everyone. "Kou, Killua, that one is mine," he declared firmly before continuing to open the door and walking back upstairs. Everyone stood silently and watched Gon leave the building.

"What have you three been doing while I was gone?" Knuckle asked curiously, after seeing that frightening look on Gon's face. Although they were initially supposed to be rivals, Knuckle took a liking to Gon and continued to fight him as a way of training him every night. However, he couldn't believe how much Gon had changed in just those couple of days he was gone on the mission. Not just Gon, all three of them seemed to have grown and matured in such little time, it made him wonder how long he had actually been gone for.

"Nothing, we haven't done anything," Killua answered, still staring sadly at the door Gon left through, "but our enemy did."

It didn't take long for Killua to leave the building too at a much slower speed than Gon. He knew Gon needed some time to cool off, and he knew almost too well that he didn't want to be disturbed. He decided to take this opportunity to figure some things out for himself now knowing that Gon won't sit still until he found and killed the culprit with his own hands. It was so unlike Gon, but Killua couldn't blame him. No matter how positive Gon was, there was a limit to how much even he could take. Yet, Killua couldn't help but grow more worried about Gon over time.

"Aren't you going to leave with them?" Toshiro asked Himeko who was still standing there, staring at Kite whilst deep in thoughts.

"No, they want their space. I need to respect that." She answered, before asking them all a question she had been keeping in her mind, waiting for both Gon and Killua to leave so she could bring it up. "Can Kite really be cured?"

Her questioned was given some thought by everyone in the room, yet no one was willing to break to silence and answer it. No one actually knew the answer to her question.

"We'll only know the answer once we find the person controlling him." Knov's answer was brutally honest, but it didn't actually bother her. She didn't want to be given false hope and be tricked into believing that Kite will be saved. Knowing that this is a gamble, Himeko felt her heart sink but at the same time she was now knew that she could expect anything to happen. Shoot used his abilities once again to safely keep Kite inside the little cage. Everyone else was getting ready to depart since their job there was done.

Before Toshiro and Natsume could leave, Himeko had a favour to ask. "Until Gon regains his _Nen_, can you two please train me?" she requested with full determination. "We still have a few weeks until then, so please, I want to become stronger. I don't think I can bear to abandon another friend, so make me strong enough to protect everyone." Seeing Gon and Killua leave like that made her extremely concerned. Gon was usually someone act without thinking, but blinded with rage Himeko knew that Gon would be even more reckless. Killua was usually the one to snap Gon out of it but this time, it didn't seem like that would work. Killua didn't know how to approach him about it which would explain that worried look on his face.

"That's quite the impossible request you are making," Natsume commented with a straight face. But seeing how serious Himeko was about this, he gave her a small smile before ruffling her hair, "I can't promise you that you'll be strong enough to protect _everyone_. But let's train together so we are all strong enough to protect the few people that matter the most."

Himeko who initially wanted to train for the sole purpose of becoming strong enough to stay alive during battle, decided to train harder to not just protect herself, but so she could also protect the people that mattered the most to her.

...

A few weeks went by, and Gon's thirty days of not being able to use _Nen_ were almost up. It was now his last day, and along with Morel's and Knov's team, Gon, Killua and Himeko were allowed to travel the Republic of East Gorteau. Technically Netero's condition only applied to NGL, so Knov and Morel saw no problem for them to come along. But that still didn't change the fact that some of them still doubted their skills. Although everyone trusted Killua's abilities and deemed him as capable of looking after himself, some doubted Gon. In Himeko's case, as she was trained by Natsume and Toshiro since then, they were able to guarantee that she didn't need to be looked after anymore either. Shoot and Knuckle still questioned Gon's abilities though. They were impressed with Gon's reflex back when he was fighting against Kite without the use of Nen, but after that none of them have seen him focus much. Morel thought that all three of them were capable of looking after themselves, and was pretty carefree about the situation. He simply believed that Gon's lack of performance was due to his lack of interest. Gon was waiting to face his real foe to unleash the power he had saved up over the weeks.

That night, after arriving at their destination, everyone waited outside for Gon's _Nen_ to return. As the clock in the tower struck midnight, the little purple mascot that was stuck to Gon said it's goodbyes and disappeared and Gon's _Nen_ returned in an instant. Though Morel sounded pretty confident in Gon's skills earlier on that day, he still needed Gon to prove that he was strong enough to tag along.

"I'm sorry Gon, but I still have some doubts that you aren't strong enough to stick around with us," he announced while taking off his red tie and unbuttoning his grey shirt. "I need you to show me your resolve." It somehow surprised everyone to see that Morel who was speaking so confidently about Gon was the first one to call him out. "I need you to attack me as if I was responsible for Kite's condition. If you aren't strong enough, I'm taking along another Hunter."

"That's completely unheard of!" Himeko muttered, only loud enough for Toshiro and Natsume to hear. "Gon's resolve is the strongest out of all of ours, he already showed it once."

"Morel-san and Knov-san are responsible for us right now, we have to take orders from them." Toshiro told, "there's nothing we can do about it. If they don't think we are worthy to tag along then we'd have to quit. They are in charge here."

"Besides, if Gon's resolve is as strong as we think it is, I don't see a problem in Morel doing this." Natsume added.

While Morel was preparing to receive the attack by strengthening his defence, Gon stepped forward. What Morel said didn't seem to have bothered him the slightest, he just needed to prove that he was indeed worthy of tagging along. However, once he was told to imagine that he was the Royal Guard that hurt Kite everything changed. Gon remembered the eyes, and the murderous aura of that deadly feline that attacked them back in NGL. He recalled Kite's last words before seeing his whole arm being removed from his body and then passing out. Back then, everything seemed so unreal, as if it was a scene from an action-thriller movie, but seeing Kite's current state was a slap back to reality. Gon's eyes turned cold and empty; that look alone made Morel want to swallow his words. While the rest were just shocked at Gon's sudden rage, two people in the sidelines couldn't do anything but helplessly watch rage take over their friend.

"First comes rock," All the strength and anger that was built up inside of him for so long was suddenly released in the form of his orange coloured _Nen_, breaking the ground underneath them and causing the earth to shake from the intensity of his power. At this point, Gon didn't even notice everyone standing around him. In his eyes, Neferpitou was standing right in front of him and it was finally his opportunity to get revenge for what she had done to Kite. But it all stopped when he felt a warm hand on his shoulder.

"Gon," Killua quietly called out to him, "that's enough."

Himeko too stepped forth and called out to Morel who was still gobsmacked by the intensity of Gon's attack. "Are you satisfied yet?" She questioned him, raising a brow. "Or did you want Gon to continue that attack?"

"N-no," Morel stuttered, still astonished by Gon's strength. "That's enough!"

It took some time for Gon to snap out of it too. He didn't realise that he was just about to blow the whole place up and kill not just Morel, but possibly everyone else around him too. "I'm really sorry about that," he quickly apologised with his usual grin. "I really was about to kill you there, Morel-san."

Knowing that he could've just possibly escaped his death thanks to Killua interrupting, Morel nervously tried to laugh the whole situation off. "You got me good, kid!" He admitted, continuing to nervously laugh at how lucky he was. Once he was able to overcome what just happened, he proceeded to inform everyone of the mission. Just as Netero instructed, he everyone up into four teams. Gon, Killua and Himeko remained in one team, after requesting to be assigned to Neferpitou. Knuckle and Shoot were assigned to Menthuthuyoupi, Toshiro and Natsume to Apednoiraud, and lastly Knov and Morel agreed to take on Shaiapouf.

With only a little more than a week left for their main operation to begin, Gon, Killua and Himeko managed to infiltrate East Gorteau that same day. It was pretty easy, almost too easy for Gon and Killua. Himeko however had a little problem with the infiltration as she didn't know how to swim, so all she could do was hold her breath and trust the boys to help her cross.

"That was easier than I thought it would be," Killua commented once they were all dry, "but now the real mission begins. We have to be careful from here onwards."

"What do you mean?" Gon and Himeko seemed a little lost by his statement.

"Countries like this have informants," he started to explain, "they are just like spies, and they report sightings of infiltrators in exchange for a reward. They will also try and keep you inside this country until you are found by the government for a reward." He continued to tell the two about how the reward was usually not just for the individual, but the group the informant belongs to. Similarly, in case the informant is found to be lying, the would be severely punished, along with the whole group. Gon and Himeko quietly listened, amazed by how much insight Killua had on this. It turned out that this information was given to him by his brother who heard it from their grandfather Zeno.

He continued to speak about not just this, but how the media had been twisting the truth for many years, making the normal citizens believe things that weren't true. The money that was supposed to aid the needy was instead spend on luxury items such as gold and high end cars, as well as missiles and nuclear weapons in preparation for future wars. The more Killua talked about the political affairs of the country, the slower Gon seemed to be walking. Eventually Gon came to a hold with steam coming out of his ears, and Himeko who was the first one to notice this stopped and waited for Gon to somehow process the information.

Killua just kept talking until he noticed that no one was following him anymore, so he turned around. "Oi, don't overheat now out of all times!" He yelled, seeing the excessive steam escaping Gon's ears. He should've guessed that this was about to happen sooner or later with Gon.

"Sorry, but that was a bit too complicated for me to comprehend," Gon sheepishly grinned as he rubbed the back of his neck. Killua just sighed, wondering whether all that talking was just a waste of his own time.

"Think of it like this Gon. In this country, the rich get richer while the poor get poorer," Himeko broke Killua's words down for him, "in any case, this country is up to no good."

"Ohh! That makes sense now!" Gon gave them both a wide smile, indicating that he did indeed manage to comprehend it this time around. Killua looked at Himeko, wondering how her no good explanation made more sense than his own, to which she just shrugged. They continued to walk a little further and managed to reach a small village; a perfect place to gather information about the country and it's inhabitants. At first glance, it looked abandoned, yet the trio didn't want to risk being spotted so they stayed hidden. With no one in sight, Killua was the first one to go down and check whether the coast was clear, telling the other two to remain hidden. Once he managed to sneak inside the village and peek through one of the house's windows, he saw that it was empty and signalled for Gon and Himeko to join him.

They slowly opened the door and peeked inside again before entering, making sure that no one was inside. As they expected, it the single room building was abandoned. It had very little furniture in it, and a single picture of the current leader hanging on one of the concrete walls. "The whole village seems to be deserted," Killua said, not being able to sense the auras of any humans around the area.

Knowing that the selections were less than a week away, Gon suggested that they might have already left to prepare for it. "Do you think they might have left for Peijing already?"

"I don't think they'll ever make it to Peijing," Himeko told, pointing at the trails of dried blood on the floor leading outside. "It looks like these trails have been here for a while now."

"And our culprit did a very bad job at hiding the evidence too," Killua added after he searched around some more. Removing a chair that was conveniently placed in front of the wall, he uncovered a bullet hole. "I guess following the blood trails is the only thing we can do now." He led the way out of the hut, following the trails of blood out of the village with Gon and Himeko close behind him. The trails didn't lead too far away from the village, and eventually stopped in the middle of a nearby forest. As they got closer, they saw a group of wild dogs circling something in front of them. However, hearing the unfamiliar steps coming their way, the wild dogs quickly ran away and hid still watching what was still left of their dinner. There were small holes dug into the ground, and stacks of human skeletons with little remaining flesh inside. "The bodies weren't buried deep enough, so the dogs were able to find them," he concluded. "I can imagine the whole village being buried here."

"And whoever did this was either in a rush, or didn't really care about hiding the evidence left behind."

"What is going on here?" Gon questioned Killua, still slightly disturbed by the piles of bodies laying right in front of him.

"This is the true purpose of the national celebration. In order to not raise any suspicion, they are using it as a way to get rid of entire villages. In other words, the selection has already began," Killua started to explain, "The estimate population of East Gorteau is around five million. It is nearly impossible for all those people to make it to the capital in time for the selection, so the are getting rid of whole villages and cities at a time. The only people that would start to raise suspicion are the co-workers or family members of the dead, but since mobile devices are banned here, there is no way for the message to spread in such a short amount of time. They will start off with the villages furthest away from their capital and then slowly work their way towards Peijing. This way, the selection will go smoothly. The government will also assign people to prevent communication between villages and towns, so there is no possibility for the message to spread so quickly."

"There are only nine days left, so even if someone where to try and carry the message to another town, there is a small chance for them to actually cause a significant change in just nine days." Himeko added.

"That's right," Killua said in agreement, "but there is little chance for the messenger to even make it to another town with informants lurking around. They will most likely be eliminated before they reach the next town."

While the conversation was going on, Gon seemed to be wondering about something specific, "but if there are only nine days left, and you want to eliminate five million people at a time doesn't that mean you need more help. If we assume that one _Nen_ user can get rid of ten thousand citizens in one day, that would mean that for five million you would need..." Gon stopped his sentence there and started to divide those two huge numbers, wanting to get an estimate of how many soldiers the ants would need.

Not wanting Gon to overheat his brain again, Himeko gave him the answer, "it's five hundred soldiers, Gon."

"Yeah, that's what I meant!"

"You are trying to get at the fact that there can't be five hundred ants who can use _Nen_, right?" Killua asked Gon, knowing that this was the point he was trying to make.

Gon nodded, "yeah!"

"I don't think they need _Nen_ users to eliminate everyone," Himeko pointed out, "the ants weren't able to use _Nen_ in the beginning, but they still managed to stir up trouble around NGL. _Nen_ is something they learnt very recently."

"That's not all, some ants can use manipulation." Killua added, remembering that large puppeteer controlling Kite. "With an ability like that, I'm sure they can control multiple people at once. Ordinary humans have an aura too, so that could easily be manipulated. In any case, if I'm correct then we just have to find the one being controlled in each village, take them out, and cause a commotion leading the survivors to escape to the nearby villages to inform everyone. If they are using manipulated citizens instead of real _Nen_ users, it will be easy to take them down one by one, but that also means that we can risk being detected easily." Killua stopped walking and turned around to face the other two. "If we run around causing chaos then we will easily be detected, but in order for the old man's plan to work we have to remain hidden. What do you guys think?"

"If the selections have already begun, then we can't just sit still," Gon answered, "let's do it!" Himeko too nodded in agreement. The lives of nearly five million people were on the line, they couldn't just sit still and wait around for another nine days while an entire nation was getting eliminated one by one.

"Okay, in that case let's do it!" Killua gave them a faint smile before proceeding, "but I will do this alone."

As expected, that alone caused a lot of uproar from Gon. "Why?" he almost yelled in disbelief, "I want to help to, you can't possibly do that all alone!"

"Gon, think!" Killua interrupted Gon's protest, "this isn't our main mission. We are here to fight that Chimera ant. That should be your focus from now on." Himeko remained quiet once again, having nothing to input in this situation. She knew that reminding Gon of Neferpitou would get him to go along with Killua's plan. Gon's silence itself was more than enough proof for that. "You have to promise me that you will stay hidden, no matter how many people get killed in front of your eyes. Promise me that you won't interrupt my plan." Gon remained silent, knowing that this was serious business. He remembered that the main reason he came all this way was to get revenge for what had happened to Kite; nothing else. It was his way of unwillingly agreeing to Killua's request. Killua too knew that defeating Neferpitou and finding a way to heal Kite was Gon's priority, so he won't object. Killua turned back around and continued walking down the path. "I will contact you via text to keep you up to date," he informed them, "and no offence, but I tend to work better alone." Gon had no objections to make, so he quietly followed Killua. Since Gon somehow agreed to Killua's plan, Himeko too stayed quiet and followed until they came to a complete stop. It was finally time for the three of them to part ways.

"Well, I guess this is a good place to split up," Killua announced. The trio took a moment to look at each other before finally deciding to say their goodbyes. "Remember what I told you two," Killua reminded them of their conversation a few minutes ago, "remain hidden until I contact you."

Gon finally managed to nod give the two a smile, agreeing to Killua's demand, "okay, but be careful Killua. You too Kou."

"Right back at you!" Killua smiled back.

"Stay safe!" Himeko told him, to which Gon gave a determined nod before getting ready to depart. Just as he got ready to head down his own path, Himeko called out to him, "Gon, wait!" Gon stopped and turned back around, wondering what she wanted from him, but he was slightly startled when he was greeted by a hug. Knowing that Himeko wasn't the kind of person to just hug anyone so casually, he could sense that she was genuinely worried about him. He hugged back tightly, trying to let her know that he'll be fine. That alone managed to calm her down and made her feel at ease, and she managed to let go. "Remember Gon, stay safe!" She repeated once again.

"I'll be fine, you stay safe too! Of course I mean you too Killua!" Gon gave them his usual happy grin, setting both Killua's and Himeko's minds at peace. He then went down his assigned path while the other two remained behind, watching him leave until he was completely out of sight.

Once Gon was gone, Killua turned to her. He too was slightly surprised by her sudden change in character but couldn't exactly blame her. He too was worried about Gon, knowing how reckless he acts based on his emotions.

"Don't judge me, I just heard that physical contact make you feel less lonely. Sometimes I feel like Gon completely forgets that he has us to rely on, we are here to fight with him but he tries to carry the burden by himself. I just wanted to let him know that he isn't alone in this, he has the two of us to fight with him."

Killua couldn't help but let out a smile and agree with her on this. In a way he felt glad that she forwarded that message to Gon on both of their behalves. He then proceeded to brief her with her part of the mission, "you know what to do, right?"

"The same as you, cause chaos amongst villages and towns." She answered, "I can't believe you actually asked me for help, 'Commander I work better alone'."

"It's easier to cover all of the villages with two people," Killua told her, "besides, if Gon knew that he was the only one not part of the plan, he would have insisted that he'd help out. I'd rather have him rest until our main mission. In any case, remember to keep me up to date by sending me texts here and there.

"Understood!" she affirmed, "I guess this is where we part ways."

"Yeah, be careful." He said, before going on to patting her head awkwardly, "don't worry, we'll make it out safely." Maybe it was because he was too shy to try and comfort her with a hug, that he thought a simple gesture like that would get the message across for him. He knew that this wasn't going to be an easy mission, and their main mission to fight Neferpitou could easily cost them their lives. But for now, he wanted her to think more positively. They both knew that Gon was going through a lot, but that didn't mean that no one else had their own worries. He was grateful that she was worried over him when he was manipulated by Illumi's needle, it made him feel like there was someone other than Gon he could lean on. Moreover, he was grateful that she decided to stay back all this time knowing how frightened she was after returning from NGL without Kite. Now that he experienced what fear felt like and how hard it was for him to overcome it, it just made him more thankful that she didn't run away and trained to become stronger. He knew that she was still scared; after all he was only manipulated into thinking that his opponents were stronger causing that fear inside of him. With her it was different, she genuinely felt scared from the bottom of her heart.

Himeko gave him a half-smile as a gesture of thanking him, for making an effort and telling her that they'll make it out safely. Although Killua himself didn't know whether or not they'll actually make it out alive, she knew that he wasn't the type to express himself like that. He was more awkward when trying to do so, and this gesture was no different. Eventually he stopped, feeling slightly embarrassed by her just smiling back at him without saying a word.

Killua took a moment to clear his throat to erase the awkward atmosphere around them, "like I said, be careful on your way and don't mess up."

"Is there someone watching us?" she asked, noticing that he had repeated this a couple of times now.

Killua wondered whether she actually noticed it too. The presence was concealed almost perfectly, so even he took some time to notice. "You could sense that faint presence?"

"No, but while you were walking I saw you looking back and glaring. I figured that it wasn't aimed at me, so I assumed that there was someone watching us."

"I think whoever it is, they are waiting for us to split up."

"And follow the weakest out of us?" She completed his sentence, "I doubt they'd follow you, they are more likely to follow innocent little Gon, or the weak little girl in the team."

"In any case, you are going straight through the forest so watch out for anything and anyone that could be waiting for you to lower your guard," he warned her, "if you stay on the path, you will be able to reach the next town with no trouble, so don't be little Red Riding Hood and stray away from the path."

Hearing that sarcastic yet funny little reference he made, she decided to lighten the mood by putting on the hood of her blue hoodie, "don't worry, I'm little Blue Riding Hood!" she beamed excitedly, not noticing how painfully embarrassing that joke was to watch. Killua just shook his head, trying to erase the whole scene out of his head whilst trying to deal with the second hand embarrassment. "Wait, that was lame wasn't it?"

"Just go!"

"I'll take that as a yes..." Nonetheless, she still managed to laugh it off just like all the other unfunny jokes she had told in the past. "You be careful too, I'll see you around then!"

Killua watched her leave and head down her assigned path, brimming with new found energy to do well on this mission. Once she was gone, Killua smiled, remembering that bad joke she just told him and quietly chuckling to himself about it. When he was the only one that remained back, he decided to leave too, walking down his assigned path.

When walking down the path, Himeko remembered Killua's words to just follow it as it would somehow lead her to one of the nearby villages that they hoped wasn't eliminated yet. She also reminded herself that there was a high chance for someone to be following her, so she made sure to stay alert at all times. She guessed that it must have been an ant based on their ability to conceal themselves without being noticed by herself or Gon. Even Killua admitted that whoever it was, their _Zetsu_ was close to perfect, and he was only able to notice thanks to little movements we was able to hear. It was dark, and awfully quiet so she tried to use it to her advantage. If someone were to follow her, they had to be very quiet in order to not be caught.

A while later, Himeko picked up her pace and one side of the path had been replaced by a river. It was a long fall, and she couldn't swim either so she tried her best to stay away from that side. For the past couple of minutes now, she clearly knew that someone had been following her, hearing occasional rustling in the bushes. Yet, she tried her best to not make a big deal of it and pretend not to notice. Whoever it was, they'd eventually decide to show themselves tired of playing hide and seek.

It didn't take long for the rustling to become louder, and eventually Himeko stopped walking when she saw that someone was finally coming out of the bushes and blocking her path. Just as she suspected, it was a Chimera ant following her all that time. A large, humanoid red fox standing on his hind legs wearing baggy, blue jeans and a character print t-shirt. His bushy, unkept black hair reached until his shoulders, and his forehead was covered with a red headband, tied into a tight knot behind his head.

"Where are you going, little Blue Riding Hood?" He asked in a low tone, his eyes fixed on her. Himeko assumed that he too heard that lame joke of hers earlier and just mentally face-palmed at the fact that he brought it back up to greet her.

Himeko slowly took back a few steps before she charged at him with full speed. Thinking that she might be running towards him to attack, the Chimera ant prepared to defend himself and counter attack, but that wasn't her intention at all. Once she was only a few yards away from him, he waited for her to attack but all she did was race past him.

"I don't have time to deal with idiots!" She shouted while continuing to run off, leaving the Chimera ant dumbstruck.

* * *

**A/n-** Part 2 of the double update :D It was supposed to be all one chapter, but it was too much to read all at once so I split it up. Anyways, my exams are over so my mini hiatus is finally over ^^ I still have school so yeah, that sucks!

I know some of you guys are like 'yaaay double update' while others are probably like 'wtf is this woman on about, why are there 4 Royal guards all of the sudden?!" Don't worry, I know what I'm doing (I think). And please excuse my lame attempt of trying to follow Togashi's example and making up a name for the fourth guard. I tried!

**Review Corner:**

**SilverDewDrop-** Yeah, the stars were supposed to indicate the reference. I think I forgot to point the reference out, but you noticed it :) Himeko isn't going to take anything from arrogant people, if anything she has to be the most arrogant of them all.

And I'd feel more sorry for Gon who has to put up with both of them arguing, and also for being stuck in the middle of the fights. Also, japanese urban legends are pretty cool so you should check them out. If you like creepy stuff and have no life (like me) I would suggest listening to horror stories on youtube. There are certain channels that read out scary stories they find on reddit and stuff, I don't know I just like doing that when I'm bored and home alone. (I'm weird, don't mind my weirdness)

**JJ-** That's cool! I love that voice actress ^^

**havanatitania-** Is Killua starting to like Kou? Maybe! Well, that's my way of trying to portray a teenage crush. I always imagined Killua to be okayish with kids because he always babies Alluka. In Himeko's case, she was the one babied so she has no clue what to do. I hope the update answered some of your questions!

This last chapter was focused on Killua, this one was focused on Gon (so hopefully that made up for it, although Gon was definitely not happy in this chapter) while the next one is going to be focused on Kou.

**Last Future of Embryo-** I'm not really sure to be honest, I've heard that Togashi prefers to work alone. That explains all his hiatuses because no one else can work on behalf of him. I don't mind waiting either, as long as I get a completed series I'm fine. Until then I'll just wait for Hunter x Hunter 2022. And that sounds like a fun yet tiring job. I hope you have fun :D Thanks for taking your time to review!

**JokeLover123-** Ha ha, I suck at riding bikes too so don't worry. I had a really bad experience crashing into my cousins bike and falling flat down on my face. My cousin didn't even care about me, he cared more about the scratches on his bike T_T

And yep, Killua called Kou pretty :3

**Mikamizu Mouri-** Thank you, and thanks for the review :D

**Jikola-** Yep, first 'date' for her. She probably didn't even realise that it was a date.

**SlightlyYandereMelissa-** Glad you enjoyed that chapter :D

**EmberSkies-** I'm sorry my fanfic has been stalking you :/ I never really expected it to stalk anyone xD

**Hikari. AA-** I'm glad you liked that chapter, I enjoyed writing it as much. ^^

**AJPJweallluvJJ-** Hmm.. good question. It all depends on how Killua acts around them to be honest. I know the answer, but to find out you'd have to keep waiting :3

**OhhPlease-** Don't worry, I'm back from my hiatus with a double update :D I'm glad you like this fic and the Koullua ship ^^

**Ziggy123-** Thank you for your review, I'm glad you like this fic ^^

**keico0906-** Thanks for the review! I don't really have a preference. Koullua or Kourapika, both are enjoyable to write although I know that more people are rooting for Koullua. It really makes my day to hear that you like this fic ^^

**ueena-** Calling all passengers waiting for the Koullua ship, the ship is ready to board! Ha ha XD


	55. Little Blue

**Hunter x Hunter: Chapter 55**

_Little Blue_

_..._

"I don't have time to deal with idiots!"

Leaving the Chimera ant in the dust, Himeko ran down the path as fast as she possibly could. Her mission wasn't to fight anyone just yet, Killua had specifically told her to stay out of trouble. Though this was something Killua had told her to do, she knew the seriousness of the situation and chose to follow his orders directly. The fight with an ant soldier could attract unwanted attention from other ants, and the last thing she wanted to do was give away their plan. Being in the middle of the woods, there were so many places she could hide and wait for the ant to go away, but once again Killua told her not to stray from the path.

_"If he heard the joke about little Blue Riding Hood, then he knows that I'll be following the path," s_he concluded, _"in other words, he knows where I'll be going and he knows which way I'll be going. I can just keep running and try to keep outrunning him, hoping that he doesn't know a shortcut to the village. He doesn't look like a fast runner, so let's just hope that I won't be running into him again." _

There was no point in thinking so much, yet she started to do just what Biscuit advised her not to do. She started to list all the possible ways for her to discretely travel from village to village, and avoid being spotted. It was pointless, in the end there was no way for her to truly predict what was going to happen to her. _"Calm down, Himeko!" _She calmed herself down, trying to take in regular, deep breaths._ "Just stay on guard, focus and everything will be fine. I've trained for weeks since the events in NGL, if I can't stay calm and collected now, I won't be able to handle the fight with Neferpitou in nine days. I've trained hard for this moment, I can't afford to mess up now. All that hard work would go to waste."_

Just comparing Neferpitou to her current situation was more than enough for her to calm down. This was nothing compared to what could happen in nine days. Compared to the Royal Guards, all the ants she was going to come across were small fries. She trained so she'll be able to face a Squad Leader at least, so she wouldn't have to worry about anything unless she came across one of the Royal Guards. But according to Knov and Morel, all the Royal Guards were going to stick close to the King until the selections were over. There was nothing for her to worry about for now.

Keeping that in mind, she was able to calm down and think about the situation more rationally. In the original fairy tale, the wolf found out where Little Red was heading to and beat her to it by taking a short cut, gobbled up her poor old grandmother and pretended to be her. He then waited for Little Red to arrive before trying gobble her up to. Of course, just like any fairy tale the end to this tale had both a couple of gruesome endings along with a few good ones. However, Himeko wasn't Little Red but Little Blue and there was no wolf in her story but a fox. Taking this into consideration, if the Chimera ant was smart enough, he would take a short cut to the village and wait for her there. If he wasn't so smart, he would continue to follow the path trying to catch up to her. She had no clue how smart he was, neither did he know whether he was a mere soldier or a squadron leader. Based on the fact that he was able to use _Ten_, she assumed he was capable of fighting. But all that thinking didn't matter much. At the end of the day, if the soldier was able to catch up to her she'll have to face him eventually, even if it went against what Killua had told her. If he just gave up or couldn't catch up, then she didn't have to deal with that problem at all.

For now, that thought was sorted out. She had to remember that she was going to come across a couple of ants during her task, especially once they notice that someone started to interfere with their plans. At least for now Gon was safe, or at least safer than Killua and her. It managed to relieve her, and now that Killua was back to his old self, she knew that he was capable of looking after himself.

Just then, the vibration she felt in her pocket caused her to slow down until she was just brisk walking down the path. She took her phone out and looked at the map tracking her location. She wasn't the best when it came to directions, but she definitely knew that she was getting very close to her assigned village. That wasn't all, when she got close enough she could smell a rusty odour lingering around in the air. It was a very familiar smell, something she could recognise in an instant. Not too soon after, a loud scream was heard coming from straight ahead.

_"No, don't tell me I'm too late!"_

After stuffing her phone back into her pocket, Himeko picked up her pace again remembering to keep her steps as quiet as possible. She could finally sense the presence of a couple dozen auras nearby; she wasn't too late after all. There were people who were still alive over there.

The path eventually came to an end, leading her to the village in chaos. There were screams and cries coming from every corner. Hiding behind a tree, she took a quick peek making sure no one was in sight before heading closer. Looking at the situation, she didn't want to wait any longer and head straight in, but she was told not to do that. She had to think rationally about this; these soldiers were controlled. They weren't her actual enemy, they were just being controlled by their real enemy. Analysing the scene, she figured there were exactly five soldiers. Villagers managed to do whatever they could to stay alive, but unfortunately two had already died. Five men were injured, while the women were inside their houses keeping the children safe. The villagers controlled the situation pretty well in her opinion, but confirming that there were only five people she had to face she headed in.

It didn't even take a minute for her take all five controlled soldiers out and tie them up with the help of some of the men of the village. They were slightly surprised by the fact that a stranger came to help them, but they took all the help they could get. Once Himeko finished tying all the soldiers up, the women and children hiding in their huts slowly came out now that they were safe, but they still remained cautious around this new stranger. After they deemed that she meant no harm, the village leader came to the front. It was a man, not too tall. He was pretty old, nearing his seventies and wore just a simple white shirt, brown vest and grey trousers and using a cane to assist him.

"Who are you, child?" He asked her, his voice still agitated from the attack.

"I just came to warn you," she answered him simply, "your leader has been dethroned, someone else is giving orders to soldiers and commanding them to commit mass murder around the villages. A lot of villages have already been taken out, and you were supposed to be next on the list."

It all started to make sense to them, but the fact that their countries leader was dethroned astonished some of them. "Diego was dethroned? Who is in charge now?"

"That's not important right now!" Himeko informed them. "These soldiers were about to kill you, and I don't recommend you to stay here any longer. It won't take long for them to notice that the soldiers failed to do their job here, they will send someone to investigate. You should all leave right now, move up to the next village and spread the message."

The news was overwhelming. Having so little information about what happened to their previous leader, or who and why someone was suddenly trying to commit mass murder caused anxiety amongst the crowd. A lot of them were still left mourning over the deceased, and Himeko could only watch helplessly, wishing she had gotten their sooner. She didn't want to interrupt, they needed to get over what had just happened but it didn't take long for the seriousness of the situation to be understood by everyone. The villagers didn't care about carrying their valuables with them, and soon left the village one by one, all rushing to nearby towns to warn fellow citizens of this country. Only a couple including the village head were left, still mourning over the pair of men that had just died. Leaving them there like that broke their heart. They were like family, and leaving them there to rot was like abandoning them. Three men got out shovels to start burying them to properly send them off to the other side, but Himeko intervened.

"You shouldn't be wasting your time doing this. I know how it feels having to leave them behind like this, but right now you have to get out of here." The villagers were still hesitant, but it didn't take much to convince them, "if you'd like, I'll bury them before leaving."

They gave in, seeing that there were still children with them. Even if it wasn't for them, they had to get their children somewhere safe. "Thank you," the village leader lowered his head slightly, before leaving her behind. Himeko received a shovel from them and she wasted no time to start digging two deep holes. She couldn't waste time either, after all she'd be in big trouble if someone were to find her. Their whole mission would be ruined if that were to happen. But she also kept in mind what happened in the village she visited with Killua and Gon. Bodies weren't disposed of properly, and somehow wild dogs were able to dig them up. She didn't want that to happen to these two, knowing that the villagers trusted her to send them off properly.

Five minutes later, she wiped the sweat off her forehead after she finally finished and left the scene immediately. Her phone vibrating in her pocket startled her, and she took it out knowing exactly who was calling. She picked up immediately, not even looking at the Caller ID.

"What's up Killua?"

_"Where are you?" _

"I'm just about to leave the first village," she reported back to him, "I came just in time, if I came any later then there would have been more deaths."

_"That's not good enough, you are lingering around too much!" _he started scolding her, _"You are you going to get caught at this rate. Let me tell you now, if a village under attack but there is a chance for you to get caught, don't get involved. You have to stay away no matter how many people are getting killed, do you understand?"_

Himeko swallowed hard hearing this, "Yes, I understand."

_"Skip the next two villages. There shouldn't be a pattern in which villages we are helping out, it should look random!" _He informed her_, "I'm moving on to my fifth village, and I'll be contacting you again soon. Be careful!"_

"You too Killua," she was about to cut the call, but realised that Killua wasn't done talking.

_"And, Kou."_

"Yeah, what is it?"

_"Never mind, I'll tell you later. Take care!" _The line was cut, and Himeko put her phone back inside her pocket before making her way out of the village. But she stopped walking, hearing a rustling noise coming from one of the nearby bushes. The rustling continued and eventually stopped, but she knew something was lurking around her. She looked around the floor and picked up a relatively large rock which she ended up throwing towards the bush.

"Ouch!" she heard a voice she came across before. Seeing the bush moving again, she figured that whoever was hiding in it was about to come out and stop following her all together. Just like that, Himeko waited for her stalker to emerge out of the bushes not being surprised to see the same ant from earlier come out. "What did you do that for? You nearly broke my console!"

"I don't care," she bluntly told him, "stop following me already."

"I didn't follow you," the fox like ant informed her, "I was here before you even arrived. I gotta leave it to you, you are pretty strong."

"I know, I don't need you to tell me that."

"Wanna play a game with me?" He asked her.

"What?"

He got out a portable console out of his pocket and showed it to her, "wanna play a two player game with me on my JSP?"

"JSP?"

"Man, you are seriously behind with technology, aren't you?" He sighed, "it's a Joystation Portable, the latest version as well. I went through so much trouble to get hold of it."

Himeko just sighed as he ignored him yet again and just kept walking down the path again, "Cool story bro, go play by yourself! I have better things to do." But what Himeko didn't see what that smug smile that appeared on his Foxy's face. Though she was starting to leave, Foxy quietly pressed a couple of buttons on his JSP, and that was all it took for Himeko to collapse to the group.

"It's a two player game, I need someone to play with."

...

Once Himeko regained consciousness, she was surrounded by nothingness. She was in the middle of a blank space, everything around her was completely white. The last thing she recalled was standing near a village she managed to evacuate, but then she also remembered that Chimera ant that kept following her_. "That little prick,"_ she cursed under her breath, knowing that the ant was responsible for whatever happened to her.

"Welcome to _Demon Tower_," she heard a robotic voice echo through the empty space, "I'm Sara, your personal guide. Want me to create a profile for Player two?"

_"I'm really stuck in a game, huh?" _she asked herself, now that one of her many questions was answered. There was no way out of there, so she would have to play along. "Ugh! Go on!" She groaned in annoyance.

"Okay, please spell out your name."

The slow, robotic voice was causing her to lost patience very slowly, yet she didn't know what else she could do. In order to get out of there, she would have to do whatever this game wanted her to do. She started to spell out her name, "H"

_"H,"_ the robotic voice repeated after her, letting Himeko know that it understood her.

"I."

_"I"_

"M."

_"N"_

"No, I said M!"

_"N"_

"M."

_"N"_

"Goddamnit, fucking piece of trash!" Himeko started to curse in a sudden fit of anger as her patience was starting to run out with the very bad voice recognition software.

"Sorry, but I couldn't find the letter 'goddamnit, fucking piece of trash'," the system informed her in a slightly regretful tone, before going on to make a suggestion, "did you perhaps mean G?"

"No!" Himeko started to yell in utter frustration.

"I got Hinnn," Sara told her, before going on to confirm it with her, "Is that correct?"

"No!"

"Would you like to start over?"

"Yes!"

"Please spell out your name."

Himeko let out yet another groan in frustration as this was getting her no where. The system obviously had trouble recognising M from N, so she decided not to use her real name. "K," she started off.

_"K,"_ the robotic voice repeated after her.

"O."

_"O"_

"U"

_"U"_

Once she was done spelling out her name, she went on to confirm it. "Okay!"

"I got Kou, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Creating profile, please wait." The robotic voice disappeared, and the room was soon filled with slow waiting music while she was asked to wait. After a minute of waiting, the voice returned to inform her that progress has been saved and that her profile had been created. "Welcome to _Demon Tower_, Kou. Initiating the game, please wait." While waiting, Himeko noticed that her surrounding was starting to change. Roads, shops, buildings and even people started to appear one by one and eventually, the game was fully loaded. Sara went on to explain that she can access most buildings, shops, buy and sell things, and even interact with some characters. There was even a rule book that she gave Himeko to read through.

She opened up the large rule book, and started to quickly skim through all the pages. The first rule threw her off already. '_Characters are not allowed to use Nen'. _Using Nen was a quick and efficient way to handle things compared to just fighting with fists. If this was a rule, then her opponent must have been really confident with his hand to hand combat skills. Not only that, it mentioned there being distractions set out on her way to make her fail her mission. She had the typical three lives, and if she were to lose all three, she wouldn't be able to leave this two dimensional world. The book went on to describe her main mission to invade the Demon Tower, battle through all the different floors and finally defeat the boss in order to win. After skimming through the pages, she put the book away and waited for her instructions, but this time she was greeted with another voice.

In the distance, she could see a tall tower standing and heard a familiar voice coming from that direction, "If you want to get out of here, you will have to defeat me!" The fox ant challenged her. At least now she knew who her opponent was and knew where she had to head to.

Remembering what Sara told her, Himeko began to wander through the streets looking for someone to ask for directions. Eventually she spotted an elder standing by a flower shop all by himself. _"He is old, so he must be wise! He must know what I have to do here,"_ she thought before she decided to approach him. "Hey old man, could you help me getting around here."

The elder looked at her, "I see, another hero has come from a far away land to try and set us free. For decades now our kingdom has been ruled by this demon, forcing us to bow down to him, but we haven't given up hope. One day, our saviour will come and set us free."

Everything he told her was already mentioned in the instruction book, so she decided to ask him a more specific question. "Yeah, I know all the background stuff, I just want directions to get to the weapon store. The map they gave me is kinda stupid. I can't read it!"

The elder looked at her once again, "I see, another hero has come from a far away land to try and set us free. For decades now our kingdom has been ruled by this demon, forcing us to bow down to him, but we haven't given up hope. One day, our saviour will come and set us free."

"Yes, you already told me so I know. Could you please tell me how to get to the weapon shop?"

The elder turned to face her yet again, "I see, another hero has come from a far away land to try and set us free. For decades now our kingdom has been ruled by this demon, forcing us to bow down to him, but we haven't given up hope. One day, our saviour will come and set us free."

_"For fuck's sake, I'll just use the map!" _Himeko decided before marching off with the map. Sara was right, the characters in the game were programmed to speak, but she didn't mention the fact that they are only able to repeat the same phrase over and over again. It was pretty pointless, she would rather have characters not talk at all. After wandering around for a while, Himeko walked passed a little boy standing by a family restaurant. Her walking past him seemed to have triggered the character to start talking.

"You must be Kou, the new challenger of the Demon King," the boy was older than ten, and slightly shorter than her. His tanned face was covered in freckles, and his dark brown hair was fairly long, reaching to his shoulders. He also carried a wooden sword around with him. "That demon has taken my parents away from me, and I must avenge them!"

_"Oh boy..." _Himeko thought, hearing the little character talk. At least this one was programmed to speak more than the older man she came across a while ago, though she was actually forced to talk to this boy. Too bad there weren't any cheats in this game so she could just walk through the walls or something and avoid talking to characters like this.

"I have decided, I will avenge my parents' death!" The boy declared full of determination.

_"Little, vengeful boy has joined your party,"_ Sara announced in her robotic voice, much to her dismay.

"Wait, what?" Himeko exclaimed. She tried taking a few steps around the area, walking in circles only to notice that the little boy was following right behind her. "Hey, little one!"

"What a nice day it is, don't you think Kou?" The little boy smiled at her innocently.

"Hey," she tried to get rid of him, "Go away!"

"Let's go kick some demon butt!" The boy beamed, full of determination. He was only programmed to say specific phrases, so whatever she said to him didn't seem to affect what he was saying.

"Don't worry, I'll get revenge for your parents so please leave me alone!" Himeko pleaded before she picked up her pace and started running away. Thinking that the boy couldn't keep up, she confidently looked back only to see him following right behind her without breaking a sweat. She suddenly came to a halt and turned to the boy again, "Okay kid, go back home and play with your toy swords!"

"Don't worry Kou, the path to victory may look foggy now, but the fog will eventually clear away," the child gave her some unneeded motivation to keep going, "... or that's what my father always used to say." His face momentarily looked upset, before he regained that innocent smile once he was done talking.

"Please get lost before I lose my patience kid!"

"Stop it Kou, you're making me blush!" The child replied bashfully, only making Himeko groan in frustration.

"Sara, how do I get rid of this kid?" Himeko asked, not having any more patience left to deal with the young boy casually tagging along.

"Information on how to remove people from your party is on page fifty-two in your instruction manual." The robotic voice replied. Hearing this, Himeko took out the massive instruction book and flipped to the said page before starting to read through the guide on how to remove someone from your party. After she was 100% sure on what to do, she put the book away.

_"Hmm... that doesn't sound so hard!" _She thought to herself, remembering what she read in the book. She gathered some strength into one of her fists before landing a punch straight in the little boy's face, possibly breaking his nose while she was at it.

_"Little, vengeful boy has left your party," _Sara announced. To be sure, Himeko started walking around the area to see whether the little boy was still following her around. Luckily he wasn't, but with a broken nose, he was looking at her with his vengeful eyes. Seeing this, Himeko didn't waste any time to get herself out of there before the little, vengeful boy decided to take revenge on her. She continued her journey, looking out for a weapon shop now that she couldn't use _Nen_ in the game anymore. At one point, she managed to reach a small, run down store with a wooden sign that had a sword pictured on it. Himeko peeked inside to see a range of weapons being set out on tables, and hanging down the walls so she concluded that this was the right place.

She ended up entering the store, and the store keeper was programmed to greet her as soon as she walked in. "Welcome to Smith's Weaponry," the slightly obese man greeted her. He was much taller than her, and though he had a belly sticking out, he was still pretty muscular. His brown beard only added to his manliness, "take your time looking around."

Himeko took that as an invitation and immediately scanned for the perfect weapon to use. Of course, being amazed by the range of weapons she was able to chose from, she got a little side tracked wanting to try out all the toys set out in front of her. She could only choose one thing, and she had to choose wisely. After all, there was a whole dungeon full of monsters she had to get through with her bare hands and these weapons. Her eyes curiosity couldn't help but want to try out the guns she found lying on the table. Although she did question why they had guns in a game that was supposedly set in the medieval era, she still couldn't help but want to try those out.

"Call me Inoue. Himeko Inoue." She picked up a pistol, and tried doing a few classic James Bond poses before pointing the gun around. Not knowing that they were actually loaded, her index fingers accidentally pressed the trigger and the bullet shot past the store owner, lightly grazing his cheek and shattered the windows behind him as well.

"Holy shit!" She exclaimed before her eyes avoided those of the store owner and innocently put the gun back on the table. Guns may look cool in movies, but she didn't have a clue on how to use them. If she did take one with her, she would have probably ended up holding one the wrong way around and shot herself by accident. She didn't want to take the risk of making a fool out of herself, but as soon as she saw the large bazooka not that far away from her, she just felt the need to pick that up and try it out too. After she ended up dropping the bazooka and fearing that she might have accidentally broken it, she felt compelled to try out the tall scythe standing in one corner of the room.

_"This looks so cool!"_ She thought, remembering how Kite's weapon could also turn into a scythe. But that one was much larger than the one she was holding, and Kite managed to wipe a whole army of Chimera ants out with them. That reminded her of Kite's current state, wondering whether he would really be fine. She didn't know Kite for as long as Gon and Killua knew him, but in that short amount of time he became one of her role models. Just like Sensei, Haruko, Natsume, and Toshiro, she ended up looking up to him as a mentor. Sure, he didn't look too friendly and he didn't speak much, but now that she thought about it, that just added to his charm as a Hunter.

"Excuse me young miss, have you chosen your weapon yet?" The voice of the store keeper startled her. She didn't expect him to speak, especially since he was supposed to be just a program. When Himeko turned around to answer, the scythe she was holding accidentally knocked over one of the weapons which then ended up causing a domino effect. She watched in horror as half of the store fell apart in front of her, before quietly putting away the scythe where it belonged. She soon ended up trying to look for something she was familiar with, like a pair of katana she knew how to use. She stopped walking as her eyes managed to catch a chain, just like the one Kurapika wielded back in Yorkshin city, but running through a few mental stimulations she just walked past it, _"Only Kurapika can make those look cool anyway, I would only take away it's coolness," _she sighed, _"I'll just go for the katana, they make me look cool anyway."_

Once she picked up two twin katana, she carried them to the front desk and saw the store owner protecting himself with a giant shield. She wondered whether this too was part of the program and looked back at the store to see how much damage she managed to cause in a matter of minutes. After placing a couple of gold coins on the table she left the store.

"Hey Sara, what do I do now?" She asked out loud, hoping the robotic voice would reply.

"Are you going to fight like that?" The robotic voice responded in a mocking tone. Himeko ended up looking at her own reflection in a store window. She wore a blue hoodie, grey jogging bottoms and a pair of running shoes. Though there was nothing wrong with her clothes as she was just going around to fight, she could tell that even a computer was starting to judge her choice of clothes.

"Well, yeah. There is nothing wrong with my outfit!"

Before she could justify her own choice in clothes, she heard the robotic voice once again. _"New outfit obtained."_

Himeko looked through her inventory and found a set of clothes neatly folded in her bag. She took that as a sign to change her clothes and looked for a place to change her clothes. After entering a local bar, she entered the women's restroom and changed into her outfit. Knee-high brown boots, blue shorts, a light blue and white top and a dark blue cape; it was a typical outfit straight out of an MMORPG game. She didn't exactly know how to feel about it, her top was cropped so it revealed her stomach, also exposing the Royal Beast symbol on her waist. She also decided to put her hair up into a ponytail.

_"New achievement unlocked: Looking presentable."_

Himeko paused as she tied her hair back, feeling offended by the system poking fun at her before continuing. Himeko soon exited the bar she was at, putting her own clothes away inside a small pouch.

"I've changed my outfit, now what do I do?" Himeko asked, hoping Sara wouldn't start picking out her choice of hairstyle now. There was no answer for a while, and she wondered whether there was a bug in the system now. However, this time around it wasn't Sara who replied. It was Foxy.

"So, you've decided to accept my challenge after all?" He asked before letting out a villainous laugh. "I didn't expect you to have the guts!"

"Oh, just shut up! What other choice do I have?"

"You have thirty minutes to come up twenty floors of my tower, defeat my hundreds of demons lurking around and finally defeat me," Foxy explained her task in more detail, and a small timer appeared in Himeko's hands.

"Meh, I've caused more damage than that in the weapon store," she informed him, "your demons don't scare me."

Foxy's laugh could be heard echoing through the streets again, "is that so? Then I guess you won't have any problems at all." Following this, there was utter silence before the brown path leading to Demon Tower was replace with black tiles. Himeko took a step forward. The tile exploded, causing her to blow up too.

The area flickered and flashed white, before Himeko reappeared again unharmed and in one piece. She couldn't believe her own eyes, she somehow managed to survive that explosion.

"You have two lives left," Sara informed her, before revealing a vital piece of information. "The black tiles explode."

"You little shit, you could have told me earlier!" Himeko ended up cursing at her guide before looking up to see that around one hundred of the path in front of her was covered in black tiles.

"Player two receives one warning for use of offensive language."

"What the fuck?!"

"Player two receives second warning for use of offensive language," Sara informed her as she swore yet again, "one more warning would result in Player two being muted for the rest of the game." Hearing this, Himeko quietened down, knowing that one more wrong word would result in her being muted and not being able to talk was the last thing she wanted to happen to herself. Instead, she focused on the path ahead of her thinking of a way to get across without losing another life. "Do you have a way of crossing? You can check you inventory-" Before Sara could finish her suggestion, Himeko prepared to run across. She took in a deep breath before starting to sprint towards the exploding tiles, leading to a chain of explosion as she ran over. She managed to safely escape each explosion by just a split second and reach the end of the explosive path in a matter of seconds. "That works too," Sara commented, seeing how she had already ran past the explosives.

Before she could get another set of instructions, Himeko prepared to race towards the Demon tower not wanting to waste any of her remaining time. Having no problems on the way there, she managed to make it there in a short amount of time. She took a moment to look at the timer to see how much time she had left; 24:32.

_"This is more than enough time,"_ she thought, opening the large double door leading to the first floor of the tower. Hearing the sound of the door open, the attention of the demons waiting for their next prey automatically focused on Himeko. The countless number of monsters stared at her, before they all charged at her at full speed. _"Damn, that's a lot of monsters," _she thought before unsheathing her sword and politely shut the door behind her; she had good manners after all. The first floor was fairly easy to complete, even without _Nen_ she managed to charge through all the demons with her two swords and slicing them all into half.

_"Demon Tower Floor Two unlocked,"_ there was an announcement that she had managed to clear the first level, and unlock the second. As soon as the announcement was done, the door with the elevator to the second floor was also unlocked. She ran inside and waited for the elevator to take her to the second floor. While waiting, she looked at how long she had left. 23:56; it was a good start, it took her a little more than half a minute to clear the first floor. As soon as she reached the second floor, she continued rushing towards the next elevator while defeating her opponents on her way there. Her luck continued for the next few minutes until she finally reached the fifth floor. Now she had around twenty minutes remaining.

"Now, only fifteen floors to go!" She told herself, before charging to attack a demon. She swung her newly bought sword once, and her eyes widened in horror as she saw the blade breaking off. Not having time to dodge her opponents attack, he was hit and flew right back, landing on the floor. Himeko briefly looked at her broken blade that was brand new without a scratch. There was no way a perfectly good blade like that would break in such a short amount of time, but seeing that another monster charged at her she didn't have much time to keep pondering about her broken blade. She threw the broken sword away before drawing her other blade that she had only used a couple of times.

Defeating all the monsters on that the fifth floor triggered the elevator to the sixth floor to be unlocked. After safely sheathing her remaining sword, she kept trying to figure out why the first sword broke in the first place. After all, she was no amateur when it came to using swords and blades. Natsume taught her how to properly use a sword so she couldn't find any flaws in the way she handled it. In the elevator, she sighed before taking out the timer. 17:23, she wasted too much time on the fifth floor. She couldn't afford to do that anymore, not if she wanted to get out of this game anytime soon.

"Himeko, you're too slow," she told herself, staring at seconds decreasing on the timer. 17:22, 17:21, 17:20, 17:19, 7:18, 7:17, 7:16. There was something wrong with the timer, ten minutes couldn't disappear just like that. "Sara, how much time do I have left?"

"You have seven minutes and eleven seconds left," the robotic voice answered, causing Himeko to throw the timer on the floor out of frustration.

_"Worthless piece of trash!" _She cursed, looking at the broken pieces of the timer on the elevator floor, _"what's the point of giving me a timer if it doesn't even work properly?!" _While she was in the middle of her mental breakdown, she suddenly heard a voice.

"Are you enjoying the game so far?" Foxy asked mockingly, making her blood boil. He obviously knew about this all, it must have been his work all together. From the broken sword to the time limit reducing all of the sudden. "You look a little troubled all of the sudden, where did all your confidence go?"

"I will kill you," she threatened, but all she heard in response was a mocking laugh. He wasn't taking her serious, he wasn't taking her serious at all.

"How cute!" He sneered at her, "what do you think you can do to me? Kill me? This is my game," he reminded her, and as a reminder the elevator that was going up came to a sudden halt. "I'm impressed you managed to come this far, but I guess I won't be seeing you any time soon." With that, Himeko was left in silence trying to find a way out of this situation. She had seven minutes left, one sword, no ability to use _Nen, _and fifteen floors to still go.

"Damn it!" She screamed in frustration, breaking open the emergency flap at the top of the elevator and climbing out. She knew the rope would lead her to the next floor, so she carefully started climbing up the rope, and kicking open the door to the sixth floor. She drew her remaining sword, wanting to quickly make it through the mass of demons. After hurrying through the sixth floor, the elevator to the seventh floor unlocked, and she took it up. Reaching the seventh floor, eight, ninth, tenth and even eleventh floor were no problem.

Himeko eventually reached the fourteenth floor, and getting out of the elevator she scanned the number of demons she had to defeat in order for the next door to open. She looked at her sword that wasn't looking to good anymore. The state of it was slowly deteriorating and she could only hope for it to last for a few more minutes.

"Sara, how long to I have left?" Now that she didn't have a timer left anymore, she could only rely on her robotic guide to inform her.

"You have four minutes and seven seconds left."

She sighed, knowing that there would be a good chance in her losing the game if she doesn't hurry up. As one of the demons rushed at her, she used her sword to defend herself which resulted in her only weapon left to break. Before the monster could attack her again, she stabbed it with the remaining blade, and couldn't pull it back out. Both her katana were unusable, and all she could rely on now were her bare hands.

"You have two minutes, three seconds left." the robotic voice reminded her, making her jaws drop. Her time limit halved, the Chimera ant ended up messing with it again. While she was trying to process the little time she had left, she heard it again, "you have fifty nine seconds left." The time limit halved yet again, and Himeko heard Foxy's voice in the background laughing in amusement.

_"I have less than a minute to get through six more floors!" _She thought. _"Come on, every technique has a weakness Himeko. You have one, Kite has one, Gon has one, Killua has one, even Sensei and the Chairman must have one. Think, there must be a flaw in this all!"_

The Chimera ant continued laughing seeing her desperate state and comparing it to how confident she looked not so long ago. "What will you do now, _Little Blue_?"

_"Think Himeko!"_

* * *

**A/n-** I hope this was an alright-ish chapter. Try to spot all the references I made ^^

**Review Corner -**

**SilverDewDrop- **Thanks for your reviews. Those two chapters were supposed to be one. I lost track, and it ended up being way too much to post as one, so I split them up hence the double update. And I hope you managed to catch up on sleep, I swear revision can kill a person sometimes haha. And 'I don't have time to deal with idiots' has always been my motto xD It's a good motto to follow, especially when there are so many shit talkers in High school.

**Havanatitania-** Kou kinda fought in this chapter, not so much though. More in the next, this chapter was supposed to be a little more comedic when she first enters a video game (Idk if I actually succeeded in that, my sense of humour can be really weird sometimes. I end up being the only one laughing at my own jokes sometimes; it's embarrassing, I know!) And yeah, there will be an additional fight with the fourth guard.

**AJPJweallluvJJ-** OMFG, that's possibly the cutest ship name I've ever heard. Like not just for this fic, I'm talking overall. PikaKou, Pikakou, Pikakou, can't get over how cute it is, hehe ^^

**Queechi-** I always imagined Palm being a mentally unstable version of the girl from The Ring. That's why Himeko called her Sadako in a couple chapters. And second hand embarrassment is Himeko's ultimate weapon. If she masters that attack, she can beat Hisoka, the Zoldycks, Phantom Troupe all the ants including the King and possibly annihilate the world's population. There is a reason she hasn't mastered it yet, and isn't ever going to master it. The story needs more characters to keep going XD

**Ziggy123-** Writing Koullua is fun! They are so unpredictable as a ship, I can literally make them have a conversation on anything and get away with it ^^

**DeceivingAura-** Wow, it means so much to hear something like that from a fellow writer! This isn't the best fanfiction out there, but I'm trying my best to write to the best of my ability and trying to think of new content that would keep the readers going and constantly going back to edit previous chapters ^^ Tbh with Himeko, I try to intentionally make her unlikable sometimes because in reality we all have those moments, and reading back I feel like that's the best way to make a character relatable and reading some reviews I feel like some readers feel like they could relate to much better that way too. Just keep going, and don't limit yourself as a writer and you'll get there before you even know it!

Also, it's so cool to finally meet someone who ships Kou with Kurapika. Seeing how everyone preferred Killua, I felt like I was doing something wrong with Kurapika, but I guess not many people prefer him as a love interest. There won't be that many interactions between Kourapika/Pikakou left in this part (HunterxHime), possibly only one or two in the next arc since I'm planning to finish this part after the Election arc. But there will be plenty more once I start writing the next part (HunterxHime 2; I still don't have an official name for it, lol).


	56. Game over

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 56**

_Game over_

_..._

While time was ticking, Himeko was struggling to find a way out of this mess. There was less than a minute left for her to reach the top floor, but she was at a great disadvantage. Her opponent, Foxy, kept halving the time left on the timer, and both her weapons became unusable. Although she was trying the think of a solution, her mind was clouded, and she could only think about the little time she had left. This task wasn't the thing that frustrated her; if it wasn't for all these random traps, Himeko would have easily won the game against Foxy. She didn't know her opponent's abilities or strength, but the one thing she did know was that after the full one month of intense training, she would be capable to come face to face with a squadron leader. This was only a waste of her precious time, and she could be doing more important things right now. Keeping Gon unoccupied and causing chaos amongst the Chimera ants was the plan Killua assigned to her, but not even that got on her nerves. There were still days left until the _real _infiltration, and although she made no promise to Gon, Killua or the others, she did promise herself to at least stand by her friends' side and rescue Kite. The fact that this stupid game might prevent her from fulfilling her real objective really bothered her.

_"Think,"_ she kept telling herself. It almost sounded as if she was ordering herself to think, forcing her brain to squeeze out a plan in the remaining seconds. Over all these years she managed to overcome every obstacle thrown her way, and she didn't want something as dumb as this stupid game spoiling everything she worked so hard to achieve.

_"You have thirty seconds left, Kou," _the computer simulated voice reminded her of the final countdown. Pressure was rising, and adrenaline was quickly pumped around her small body. Soon, she was able to hear her own loud, thumping heart beat, letting her know how anxious she really was. Her remaining time was nearly up, and she had come to a conclusion. There was no use in denying it anymore; she was stuck in a virtual reality game the Chimera ant had created, he played by his own rules, and there was no way she could win with all the odds turned against her. She accepted the idea that she was the weakest link; Player 1 was far more superior than Player 2, and there was nothing she could do about it. She wanted to give up.

On the twentieth floor of _Demon Tower_, Foxy was seated in his large, throne made out of the skeletal remains of animals. Compared to the tacky attire he wore in the real world, he was only dressed in the finest gowns, a red cape draped over his broad, hairy shoulders, and he was showing his authority with the golden grown on his head. This was his world, his tower, and he was the demon king; no one could tell him otherwise. On one of his sides was a little timer, counting down the mere seconds Himeko had left. Seeing how she hadn't gotten anywhere near him yet, he knew the victory was automatically his. There was no way in hell she could clear fifteen floors in less than a minute, and he could just imagine the mentally broken expression on her face. Himeko being the strongest, and possibly smartest opponent he had ever fought using his ability, he had to cut a lot more corners than usual, but victory was still his in the end.

His eyes were fixed on the round, red timer, _"six, five, four, three, two, one," _he impatiently started counting down, until his eyes brightened up as soon as the timer started ringing, and vibrating, filling his whole room with the deafening sound. "Zero!" He exclaimed in excitement, confirming another victory for himself. After finally silencing the obnoxiously loud timer, Foxy started snickering at the thought of him losing against a thirteen year old. So what if she was stronger than the men he had faced in the past, she was still only human. He considered himself more than that, he created a world where he was solely the king, no god. He deemed himself to have been born to rule over his own world, the stupid humans whom he would use as his own slaves. "For a moment, I actually thought that brat was going to win," he laughed to himself, before wanting to see his own, proud reflection in one of the mirrors to his side. But once he saw the reflection in the mirror, his heart wanted to jump out.

"Don't move!" Himeko warned, before Foxy could even jump up from his seat out in horror. Foxy obediently listened, and sat still, staring at the reflection shown in the mirror. Right behind him was the girl he thought he had beaten, with what looked like a small umbrella, pointed at the back of his head.

"How did you-" Foxy was just about to ask how she managed to get to his floor so quickly, but before he could even finish asking his question, Himeko proceeded to give him the response.

"It's this little thing I learnt called _Zetsu_," she informed him, before refusing to enlighten him any more than she already did. "This is your own ability, I'll trust you to know your own weakness and figure out how I got here." Hearing her answer, Foxy immediately knew what she was referring to. His power was close to being perfect, there were no holes, nothing. It was planned out perfectly, an ability he worked on for days to create. While all the other squadron leaders were already done with their _Hatsu_, he remained patient, and spent more time and effort into it. He wanted to be unbeatable, live in a world where he controlled everything. A world he had created for himself, a world where he was god.

Himeko wasn't going to let him go anytime soon, it was written all over her face. "What do you want from me?" Foxy questioned her, knowing that she wanted to negotiate with him.

"Tell me how to leave this world," she demanded aggressively, "now!" Coming from someone so little, Foxy least expected this animalistic behaviour from her. That low, raspy, almost growl like voice was unexpected, and the tone of her voice did manage to make him get agitated at that specific moment. However, comparing her appearance with the way she acted, he concluded that this was just a tough act. To him it looked more like a young pup growling at a much larger dog, hoping to scare it off.

Analysing her facial features a little more, he started to slowly regain his confidence. The King, the four Royal Guards and some of the other squadron leaders were a lot more intimidating than her. He decided to go after her, seeing how she was the only girl in the trio travelling through the woods. With Killua being to most threatening, Foxy had rated Himeko to be the least just based on her appearance, and posture alone. A perfectly straight posture like that was something he rarely saw, and it was usually something only those kind, lady-like girls would have. "You will let me go afterwards?" He questioned her in a more cocky tone.

"You are in no position to be giving me orders," she pointed out, before roughly pressing her weapon against the back of his head. "Just tell me where the exit is."

Now that he got a closer look at her strange weapon, he figured that maybe she wasn't so much of a threat after all. How she managed to figure out his flaw was probably just beginners luck, and apart from that she was trying to threaten him with an umbrella out of all weapons she could choose. The more he thought about the situation he was caught up in, the funnier he found it to be. "What are you going to do with that? Poke me to death?" He mocked her, before going on to snort at his own, belittling remarks. "Do you think your threats are going to work on me?" He raised a brow, "I can tell what kind of person you are just by looking at you, there is no way that sweet, little face could kill someone."

Having wasted more than enough time as it is, Himeko chose to press the trigger on the baby blue umbrella handle, firing a bullet straight through the ant's head. The impact of the bullet was so much, it ended up going straight through his head, coming out from the other end, until eventually slowing down, and falling to the ground. "This sweet, little face just killed you, but I guess that's not going to help you anymore." To make sure that he was actually dead, Himeko used the pointed tip of the umbrella and applied _Shu_ to dismember his head, and with one clean cut, it fell to the ground, rolling around until it finally came to a stop. With Gon messing up once already, which resulted in Kite shouting at all three of them, she made sure to kill the Chimera ant the right way. Himeko then walked over to the gold crown lying on the floor, before proceeding to pick it up and placing it on her own head. "Sorry for the anticlimactic ending!"

_"Player one was defeated by player two,"_ the game system announced,_ "Player two is now the new Demon King." _That confirmed it, Himeko's opponent was dead, and the role of the Demon King was passed on to her. However, all she did was sigh in frustration after looking at the weapon in her hand. The bracelet she conjured now had two silver charms hanging down from it, one was a katana with a blue, crystal as the handle. The other was an umbrella, the exact same umbrella she was holding in her left hand, but the blue crystal in the handle of that charm had lost its shine and became dull. While her first weapon, the katana had a more simplistic function, just like an upgraded version of any ordinary katana, the baby blue umbrella with yellow stars she was holding was different. It acted as a multipurpose weapon, something that had more than just one function. Shooting special, _Nen_ bullets was just one of many. There was not much time for her to waste creating lot of different weapons, so she had to find a way to make a simple, yet efficient weapon. However, as she created her bracelet and its charms through _Vows and Limitations, _one of its many limitations included the limited use of each weapon. She could only use each charm once a day to be precise, and once she did, the blue crystals on the charms would loose their colour and shine, until they become usable again. Having wasted one of her most effective abilities on a small fry annoyed her a little, and if she were to disperse the weapon, she wouldn't be able to use it until the next day.

Now that she has become the new person in charge of the game, she figured that simply defeating the previous king wouldn't lead her back out of the game. The title was just past to the new king, so if she wanted to get out of the game, she would have to find her own way out. Although she had no idea on what to do next, Himeko thought of asking Sara, her personal guide for the whole game. "_Sara_, I'd like the _real_ rule book for _Demon Tower_." She then anxiously waited for a response from the computer simulated voice.

_"Real rule book obtained." _The new book she received in her hands looked almost identical to the one she received at the start of the game, but this one had a gold coloured frame around the front cover, something the fake one didn't have. She took out the fake book from her side bag and put it aside before reading through the actual rules of the game, hoping that there was a way for her to get out.

The other book mentioned distractions being set out to make her fail her mission, and ironically, the book ended up being the distraction it was talking about. Although there was some truth to whatever was written in the book, she was also presented with rules that were simply not true. It took her a while to figure out after almost giving up the game for good, but when she finally remembered one of the many rules in the book, she went on to double check and answer her doubt.

'Characters are not allowed to use _Nen._' This was the very first rule mentioned in the book, and also one of the things that put her off the rule. She managed to come far with her just her bare hands and sword skills alone, mainly because she thought that the use of _Nen_ was forbidden, and anyone who used _Nen_ would be disqualified as the book later went on to explain. But when she calmly started to think about the whole concept of _Demon Tower_ more reasonably, she started to noticed how the fake rule book was contradictory. _Demon Tower_ might be a virtual reality game, but it was made using Foxy's _Nen_. Foxy was a specialist, and although the technique he had created seemed flawless, the fact that it was created with his _Nen_ was its flaw. Everything Foxy did during the game, from controlling the demons in the tower, to giving Himeko a hard time was completely reliant on his own _Nen_. The book stated that none of the characters could use _Nen_, but at the start of the game Foxy described this as a two player game; Foxy being Player 1, and Himeko being Player 2, making Foxy still a character of his own game.

That wasn't the only thing she came to conclude. As mentioned previously, Foxy's _Hatsu_ was the game, and the control he had over it as the Demon King. However, she came to realise that there must have been some more depth to his abilities. The closer she came to the twentieth floor, the more Foxy began messing around with her. From cutting down the time limit, to sabotaging the things around her, he was doing his best to not let her get any closer to him than she already was. Himeko didn't find this strange at first, but after thinking about it for some time, she did find it a little odd. Even if she did manage to come to the final floor, she would have had to beat him in order to win the game. With Himeko having been exhausted after fighting all the hundreds of demons the tower was filled with, Foxy would have obviously had the upper hand. But Foxy was desperately trying to lower her chance of winning, the closer she came to victory. Although being ranked up high based on his _Nen_ ability, and despite being a squadron leader himself, Foxy was physically weaker than other squadron leaders. To make up for that one disadvantage he had, he was capable of creating an ability that could beat, or trick pretty much anyone. Cheating was part of his _Hatsu_, and it was also the reason he won in his own little game.

Himeko sighed, before shutting the new rule book and putting it into her side bag. Although it was a lot more accurate than the first one, it was almost impossible to flick through every single page to find a small piece of information in a minute as she had hoped to do. She was surprisingly impatient, and she knew that wouldn't help her find that tiny bit of information she was looking for. All she knew was that the exit was somewhere in the game, so all she had to do was find it. Considering how large this virtual world was, it was easier said than done. "Sara, how do I get out of this game?" She asked, hoping her personal guide would help her out. She stood there, waiting for the voice to respond, but it didn't. "Sara, how do I get out?" No matter how much she tried, the computer automated system wouldn't respond to her questions. _"Maybe the main purpose of it was to help the hero, and not the Demon King," _she began thinking. As the ruler of the game, she now has abilities she didn't have as the 'hero' of the game. Maybe the system was only programmed to aid the hero, and once she won the game, it didn't have much of a use. At the end of the day, she had to find out a way by herself.

The first thing she did was spend a moment looking at her opponents dead corpse, before glancing at the surprisingly normal looking bullet she fired. She had used the bullet a couple of times before to do test runs on her weapon, but this was the first time she had seen the damage it had on a living organism. The bullet was able to make a clean hole through Foxy's head, and she had to consider the fact that ants had much harder shell protecting them compared to ordinary humans. Although it was her own ability she worked on, she couldn't believe how amazingly strong it really was. She found it quite hard to believe considering the fact that she was still a beginner, and even her transmutation ability took very long to develop. The immense effect _Vows and Limitations_ had on her abilities impressed her, and she finally understood why Kurapika was able to become so strong before she even mastered her basics, but at the same time she couldn't help but be frightened by what consequences this ability might bring her.

Having wasted enough time already, Himeko decided to leave the twentieth floor with Foxy's golden crown still on her head. There were still demons lurking around the tower; she didn't actually slay all of them in the final thirty seconds. She only killed the ones that came in her way, but other than that, there was no real reason for her to beat every single one considering that the rule book was a lie anyway. She needed the crown to establish that their previous king had already been beaten, and that she was their new ruler. She used the set of stairs leading to the nineteenth floor, and upon reaching the said floor, she was greeted by all the remaining demons. The army of remaining demons all lined up once they saw their new ruler, and got down on one knee to bow down to her.

Himeko was taken back by it all at first, these demons weren't just brainless fighting machines after all, they had enough brains to know that their king had been defeated, and that there was someone stronger than him taking his place. Just then, one of the demons standing in the very first row stepped up. _"My name is Behemoth."_ Although he didn't open his mouth to talk, she could still hear him, as if she could hear him through telepathy. _"My sole purpose is to fulfil your wishes."_

_"Why is it that things get weirder, when I think they can't get any weirder?" _she questioned herself, before looking at the beast. She didn't want to end up trusting the same army that was so quick to turn their backs on their old leader, but she didn't have any other lead. "Then help me find a way out of this game," she said her first demand, hoping Behemoth would know how to exit this world.

_"I cannot do that,_" the demon answered her in a stubborn tone, _"I cannot allow our queen to exit this world." _The crown she was wearing allowed her to communicate with the beasts of the tower, and Himeko had somehow put two and two together to figure this out. However, now that she heard his answer, she didn't exactly appreciate it, and neither did she even find a point in these demons being there. They were completely useless, and that again made her realise something about this game. Although she won the game, she still couldn't leave the world, as if it was Foxy's revenge for getting killed. Himeko felt as if the phrase 'sly fox' was very fitting here, as Foxy was partly fox. _"But there is something we can show you." _Behemoth stood back up, and lead Himeko through a door that wasn't there before. After maybe ten minutes, the two had climbed down a very long set of stairs from the nineteenth floor, to the basement, which was below the ground floor. She remembered skim reading about this floor in the real rule book, but she never really paid attention to it. After all, she was only looking for information about the exit. The basement was much colder than the other floors, and it was used as a sort of prison, guarded by other demons. She was surprised to see humans behind the bars, and judging by their attire they looked like characters that were part of the game. _"These are your slaves,"_ Behemoth said, walking past all the cells with men, women and even children in them.

Himeko felt nauseous just looking at this place. She knew it was just part of the games, and that all these characters weren't even real, but the basement just gave her a sense of _deja vu_. "I see," she said in reply, "You can all leave, I have something to do here."

She noticed how all the demons hesitated a little, _"very well,"_ Behemoth was the first one to follow his queen's order, and the handful of guards that were watching the basement also left. Himeko quietly watched then leave, and waited for all their aura's to completely disappear. There was something about Behemoth she didn't trust, and she knew the feeling was mutual. He stuck uncomfortably close to her, making sure to watch her every move. It made her wonder whether he was really just a character from a game, as he was much smarter and self reliant than the other characters of the game. Once they were gone, she broke open the cellars, to allow the villagers to escape, however the characters did not move an inch. Himeko tried doing the same with all the other cells, only to end up with the exact same results.

Something was odd, so she decided to walk into one cell herself to see why the characters were so unresponsive. She waved her hand in front of their faces, and tried shaking them by their shoulders, but none of it actually worked. _"Maybe their characters aren't supposed to be rescued," _she concluded, remembering that a few characters of the game were only able to say certain dialogues, for example that old man she met at the start of the game, and the little, vengeful boy who was only able to say four to five. It made her wonder what the true purpose of these villagers was, seeing how certain characters such as the blacksmith, and Behemoth were very well developed. Maybe their only purpose in the game was to serve as some sort of decoration, and possibly be part in Foxy's sick fantasy of being some sort of overlord in his own, little world. Whatever it was, their unresponsiveness as well as their frightened expressions was enough to disturb her. _"When I want to play the hero, this game won't allow me to." _she began to sigh, thinking how she must have looked suspicious sending all the guards back up._ "Well, that was a fail!"_

There was something about this game that seemed almost impossible to beat now. Although she had technically beaten the game, the challengers main motive would be to return to their own world. She had been running around in circles, and though the position as the Demon King seemed powerful at the start, it felt quite useless to her now that she couldn't even find a way out. The King's rule book only briefly mentioned the exit, it being somewhere in that world, but the only way to get out was to save the ones that needed saving. The villagers clearly weren't meant to be saved, and neither did she feel that any of the demons wanted to be saved by her. The village wanted the Demon King to be overthrown, and although she accomplished that, it didn't seem to be the rescuing she needed to do either.

_"What else could it be?"_ She leaned against the ice cold, brick walls to try and find a solution to this mess._ "Who else would require saving, other than myself of course." _After going through the long list of possibilities and theories in her head, and eliminating most of them, she decided to take a rest for a while. Biscuit taught her to relax at these times even if the situation required her to do otherwise; maybe if she managed to clear her head, she'd be able to find a clue, just like she did earlier. _"I wonder how Gon and Killua are doing." _The last time she saw those two was quite a few hours ago, and though she had faith in the two to do much better than her, she couldn't help but be worried at the same time. It didn't take her long to realise that she was being followed, and Foxy wouldn't have been the only ant lurking around. Killua stated that Gon and her were most likely to be followed, mainly due to how 'weak' they looked, and judging by how cautious Killua was, only someone out of their minds would follow him out of all three of them. Though he stopped being an assassin long ago, that dangerous aura he emitted still remained with him to this day. Although she hated to admit it, but Killua did look the strongest out of the three based on body language alone. The possibility that Gon was followed by another ant was quite high, considering how harmless he looked. Even Killua must have ran into some trouble on his way around the different villages, so it was safe for her to assume that she wasn't the only having to take a detour from their original goal.

Once she was done, Himeko decided to look up, only to be faced by a distorted face of her deceased opponent. She watched in horror as its deformed mouth opened, _"AaaaaAAaaaaaAAAAAaaaaaaaAAaa."_ A loud, ear piercing shriek escaped its mouth, forcing her to cover her ears. The high pitched shriek started to lower in frequency. _"kill me kill me kill me kill mekilmeekillmekillmekilllmekillmekikillkillkilkill."_ The madness continued as incoherent words started to come out of its mouth. Himeko raised her weapon, wanting to the push trigger on the handle to fire another bullet, but the distorted, 2D image of Foxy just glitched, before vanishing completely.

_"What the hell was that?!"_ She gulped, before looking back at the villagers still inside the cells. Upon seeing the faceless figures sitting on the floor, she dropped her weapon, causing the sound to echo throughout the entire underground floor. As she bent down to pick her weapon up, she swore that she saw something move past from the corner of her eye. She looked across at a long hallway in the distance leading somewhere further into the basement, seeing a figure quickly move past. Either her eyes started playing tricks on her, or the game was starting to head into a completely different direction.

"Help!" She heard a voice coming from where she saw the figure move towards, and it quickly gave her an unsettling feeling. Whatever it was, it wasn't a good idea to go down that way.

_"Could that be a g-g-g-ghost?!"_ she started to stutter, before proceeding to gulp at the idea of it being a real ghost; the ghost of the murdered Foxy to be precise. _"When did this change from a adventure game to a horror game?" _she clenched tightly onto the handle of the umbrella, making sure not to drop it again, just in case she needed it. Sensei might have helped her get over her inferiority complex, but ghosts was one thing she forgot to work on. Palm's ghostly appearance was enough to frighten her, so she didn't want to imagine having to deal with a real ghost.

"If I was the main character of a horror movie, then I'd probably follow the figure very slowly, taking up maybe five minutes of the movie, and then get killed by the ghost," she anxiously thought out loud, "but since I'm not the main character of a horror movie, I should probably run the fuck back upstairs like a sane human being!" No matter which cliche horror movie it was, the dumb character who decided to get the courage to check up on the paranormal occurrences was usually the one to die first. But then again, that Himeko to another theory now that she thought about it a little more calmly._ "Didn't that voice just ask for help?" _She had to save someone in order to get out of the game according to the rule book, and it didn't specify whether she had to save a human, demon or a ghost. _"I told myself that I'd help Gon save Kite, I can't back down now!" _Driven by just that one goal, Himeko tightly wrapped her arms around her umbrella and started to slowly head towards the long hallway, just like one of those dumb characters in a cliche horror movie. When walking past the stairs leading back up, she contemplated to just run back upstairs into safety before deciding that she had to at least try. If the ghost didn't need help and wanted to kill her, she could just run away really, really quickly; or that was at least what her naive mind thought to calm down.

"Hello?" She started to call out in a slightly agitated voice, "Is anyone out there?"

"Help!" The same voice from earlier responded to her, but this time it didn't sound like a ghost. "We are stuck down here, could you help us out?"

_"That doesn't sound like a ghost!" _she thought, _"Or maybe that's what the ghost wants me to think!"_ To confirm that she wasn't just digging her own grave, she decided to ask another question. "Could you tell me who you are, and how you got here?" It was a question she asked to determine whether it was safe for her to continue, or whether she should just head back out. For some reason, getting the courage to go down that long hallway was a lot harder than beating Foxy, which she considered quite an effortless win. "I will only help you out if you answer my question."

"We don't belong to this world," the voice answered her yet again, "we were challenged to play this game with that monster, and after losing we were trapped in it." No matter how freaked out she was, Himeko knew that this was the truth based on the desperation in the stranger's voice alone. She continued to grip tightly onto her weapon and hurried down the hall, only to find another couple of cellars but this time, with real humans in them. As soon as they saw the young girl with the Demon King's crown on her head, the locked up men sighed in relief. Although they were all surprised to see someone so small victoriously walk towards them and break open each locked gate with solely her bare hands, the sense of relief they got after finally being rescued was a lot more overwhelming.

"How did you manage to beat the king?" One of the more younger men asked in surprise, knowing very well about how much Foxy would have cheated his way through the game.

"The information given in the rule book is wrong," she explained, "there are bits of information that start to contradict each other, and if you think about it some more, they stop making sense all together." None of these men were actually _Nen_ users, and despite their stronger than average aura's, Himeko could sense that. She initially figured it out because of the _Nen_ rule, and she highly doubted that any explanation she would give regarding _Nen_ would actually make sense to them. "That's besides the point, I have to get out of this game as soon as possible and I'm sure none of you actually want to stay here. The only way for the exit to appear in the game is after I save someone who needs help, and I'm assuming it's you."

"Then I guess we should start heading out quickly," one of the older men pointed out, "this game started glitching, and it all happened after the announcement of the new king. There is a possibility that the game could eventually just crash before any of us make it out."

The glitches he described started ringing a bell. The distorted image of Foxy, the faceless villagers, and even Behemoth's high intelligence could be part of the glitch. _"That makes sense! This game runs on Foxy's Nen, and although it's possible for the technique to still work after the owner is dead, in this case the ability is slowly starting to fall apart. The possibility of us not being able to escape if the system completely glitches is high, so we should get moving if we want to see the sun again." _Himeko looked at all twelve men who lost the game against Foxy, two being injured and needed assistance to walk. None of them knew how far they had to walk in order to get out, and although most of them were glad to be rescued she knew that there were a couple of them who still didn't trust her. It didn't exactly surprise her, after all, a fox humanoid just appeared out of no where, sucked them into a virtual reality game and cheated his way to victory, trapping them in the game. If anything, she'd be pretty vary too.

"Listen," she announced, wanting all twelve men to hear what she was about to hear. "I need you all to trust me, I am on your side!" She started off, and seeing how everyone decided to lend her an ear, she continued. "We are all going to get out of this together, so don't worry, no one is going to get left behind. I need four people to help the two injured out, and the rest will walk behind them. I'm the only one with a weapon, so I'll lead the way out just in case something unexpected happens."

The word 'weapon' being used caused some confusion amongst them, especially since all they could see is that harmless, umbrella she was carrying around. "A blue umbrella?" One raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

"It's a baby blue umbrella with yellow stars," she corrected him, "To be honest, I wanted a cobalt blue umbrella with a midnight blue frills, so I'm just as disappointed as you all." The men briefly stared at her, wondering whether she was actually being serious. An umbrella was an umbrella, no matter what the colour or pattern on it was. But they had to remember that Himeko managed to beat Foxy with that strange umbrella when they couldn't even come close to him with guns and swords. "Let's go!"

The injured pair was assisted out by two men on either side, and Himeko led the way out of the basement, back up the long set of stairs, and the remaining six men followed right at the back. Now that Himeko confirmed that all the sightings of ghosts were just glitches, she had finally regained the confidence to lead the group back out. Leading two injured men upstairs was a long process, and it took them nearly half an hour to reach the top of the tower again. Strangely, no one was on the nineteenth floor as Himeko initially expected, and she was somehow relieved to see that they could safely escape the tower with no hindrances. She led the group to one of the elevators that could go straight to the bottom floor, and waited for everyone to get on. However, as only six people could get on each time, she had to remain behind with six of the men, waiting for the elevator to go all the way down and come back up. But the time the elevator took was way too long.

_"They are getting away,_" she heard a voice coming from the stairs, recognising that it belonged to Behemoth. _"We cannot let our new ruler get away."_ That was when Himeko realised something, these demons didn't care about the group of men she had rescued, they didn't want her to get away.

Once the elevator door finally opened, the remaining six men rushed inside, encouraging Himeko to squeeze in too. It would be easy for the enemy to follow just by climbing down the long set of stairs, or worse, cut the wire of the elevator before they get down safely. It was a lot more risky for her to go along with them, and knowing this, she chose to stay behind. "Go ahead, I'll join you once you are all down!"

The men didn't talk back, but hesitated for a while to see whether she would change her mind. But seeing how she stubbornly remained still, one decided to close the door. "Fine, we will be waiting." Himeko remained still until the door was fully shut, and it started heading back down to the ground floor. She raised her weapon, firing bullets around the room and trying to eliminate as many of her enemy as she possibly could, making sure to keep the elevator blocked at all times. When she had to wait to let it recharge, she proceeded to use the pointed tip of the umbrella and _Shu_ to cut down the enemy, just like a regular sword. One by one, the number of dead demon corpses started to increase, but somehow, there was no end to them, as if they were starting to multiply all of the sudden.

Three minutes of pointless struggling later, the elevator door finally opened up again and Himeko rushed in, pressing the button to the bottom floor, before repeatedly pressing the button to close the doors as soon as possible. But before it could close, Behemoth broke the buttons outside the elevator door, making it break down. The lights inside turned off all of the sudden, forcing her to think of a different way out.

_"We CaNnot LeT OUr CAnNot CanCANCanNOCAnnOT lEt tHE qUeeN EsCApe._" The game started glitching again, letting her know that there was little to no time left for her. She used her umbrella to shoot through Behemoth's head, before stepping out of the elevator. Behemoth's fallen corpse still managed to grab hold of her leg, forcing Himeko to repeatedly shoot his hand until it detached from the rest of the arm, but the hand still clang onto her. Himeko decided to ignore that problem for now, as she had to deal with the rest of the demon army. Her weapons still had to recharge, and she had to find a way out.

Being stuck in that situation brought back some memories of Yorkshin city, when Nobunaga held her hostage along with Gon and Killua. _"If you can't find an exit, you've got to make your own." _Breaking one of the walls seemed like the only sane, yet insane option left, and since it saved them back then, she chose to rely on it again. She couldn't use the umbrella just yet, and her wind blast wouldn't be able to break the walls from where she was standing. _"I think from this distance, the aero disc would be my best bet." _There was still the possibility of the whole building collapsing depending on how big the impact was, but at the end of the day, it was the only option she could think of to get out quickly. After preparing herself, she began reciting the long name of the attack, "Heaven's punishment number two; _Aero blast_."

The boomerang like sphere flew towards the brick wall, killing anything that came in its way, before creating a large hole in the wall. During all the confusion created with the sudden attack, Himeko ran towards the hole, before taking a moment to look down. She was surprised to see how high up she really was, calculating the possibility of a safe landing, before she noticed something right at the bottom. It looked like a large, open portal on the ground, and at the bottom she saw one of the men waving at her, before jumping into the black hole. That was the exit that would lead her back home.

She briefly looked at the umbrella in her hand, before looking back down at the long way down. "Well, it's meant to be a multipurpose umbrella," she shrugged, before taking a few steps back. She started to run towards the hole and leapt out, before opening up the umbrella. Although she did create her weapon to be used in multiple ways, it was still a lucky bet. However, her gut feeling didn't betray her as her fall was slowed down, and she slowly started gliding towards the portal. Eventually, the umbrella ended up dispersing due to the prolonged use, and she ended up falling through the portal leading her back to the real world.

However, her arrival to the real world wasn't as cushioned as she initially expected. Out of all places to land, she landed in the deep waters by the path she was taking. "Help!" she screamed out, hoping someone would hear her. While frantically kicking her legs, she tried her best to keep her head outside the water, but her panic didn't help her one bit. Eventually, she couldn't keep her head up anymore, and ended up sinking, until her whole body was fully submerged in the salty water. Not being able to hold her breath any longer, Himeko started to lose consciousness.

* * *

**A/n -** I'm honestly really sorry for the delay in releasing this chapter. I didn't mention this in my last update, but I started editing and revising this story from the start. My old chapters lacked so much detail and content, so editing each and every chapter took me so long to do, and I just got to the Yorkshin arc. Considering that I still have around 30 chapters to look through, I hope you'll understand that I might not update as frequently. However, I did notice that the chapters after the Yorkshin arc, although they were much longer than the older chapters, naturally they were also much more detailed and have not as many mistakes.

Let me just add an example of how bad I really was back then. 'Himeko started running out of patients.' Patients? Really now? Since when was Himeko a doctor? Anyways... now that you had a taste of how badly written this fanfic was, I hope you'd understand why I went back to start editing chapters again. There are no major changes though, so you don't need to worry about revisiting the older chapters if you do not wish to do so. Also, I do have exams coming up in May and wanted to let you guys know in advance!

Anyway, I really do appreciate your patience (no, not patients) and I do really support all the support I'm getting, so I'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you, and also sorry for leaving you on another cliffhanger. Any guesses on what might happen next? Leave your answer down below to win... maybe a one-shot at your request(?) Could be anything, just no smut please!

Review Corner:

**AJPJweallluvJJ-** To be honest, your review made me quite happy. I get happy reading every single review you guys leave me, so don't get me wrong, but your review told me that I got my point across quite well. Personally, I think the real beauty of literature is the different ways the readers interpret it. But as the writer, I can't help but feel connected to a reader if they see my point of view of how I try to interpret my own story. Himeko's crush on Kurapika was as you correctly pointed out, from the mid Hunter exams. The sole reason this ship doesn't have much depth yet is because of Himeko's character, and as you might have guessed, her naive interpretation of what love really is. She mainly thinks about her own role in it, completely ignoring Kurapika's point of view in it, so that love line will progress a lot more when she starts understanding that love is a two sided thing and doesn't just revolve around her.

Koullua as you correctly pointed out yet again only started developing around chapters 51-52. (I went back to confirm, hehe ^^) The friendship the two share is quite complex, and they only started to form a bond during the Yorkshin arc (which was much later than them becoming friends with the other three), and it was at the end of that arc when they started to appreciate each other a lot more. That argument they had at the start of this arc was yet again another way for them to become stronger and trust each other more, hence their love line took more than have the plot to develop. Lol, I'm starting to ramble again. My point was that since I managed to get this all across to you through my (crappy) writing, I feel like I'm improving as a writer. It makes me quite proud of myself, so thank you ^^

**SilverDewDrop-** We just have to wait for Killua to appear once again to for him to say whatever he wanted to say. Whatever it may be... And Kurapika isn't going to show up physically until the sequel since I'm following the main story line of HxH. Don't worry though, the sequel will be written after the Chairman Election arc, so we'll have more Kurapika after that ^^

And make sure to get enough sleep. Lack of sleep will lead to lack of concentration during revision. But sometimes I wished I'd follow my own advice since I'll sit at my desk until 1-2am doing past papers the day before the exam.

**Queechi-** I'd like to thank you for your intellectual and mind blowing analysis and constructive criticism of the previous chapter. The part where someone put his hand up to ask an irrelevant question you were talking about, though it didn't actually happen in the previous chapter, was truly interesting. Eh, who am I kidding? We all have that one kid in the class who feels the need to ask a question one minute before we get to leave class, and ends up holding back the WHOLE FUCKING CLASS! So yeah, I do know quite a few people like that :)

**havanatitania-** you'd have to read the next chapter to answer your question ;)

**Technochocolate-** Thanks, bruh ^^ It finally feels good to see that people are supporting Kurapika instead of Killua. Although I'm not on any particular side, it feels nice to know that there are people supporting Kurapika ^^

**animagirl-** Yeah, I guess I see where you come from. Himeko is still really young, so I've noticed that the age gap does bother quite a lot of people. Personality wise she does have a lot in common with Kurapika, and the main reason she was so quick to trust him was because of how similar they were. I once read an article that individuals are more drawn to people that are like themselves as they are more likely to trust them. Himeko had, and still has trust issues being from an homogeneous clan where everyone looked quite similar to her, so I guess she was naturally drawn to him. I do agree about Koullua though. They are both transmuters, so naturally they'd have a few personality traits that are similar, but it's a lot more fun writing about those two than Pikakou because of their playful and mischievous personalities! Thanks for your review, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter :)

**starthedetective-** Thank you so much, I feel so honoured that my fic is the first fic you decided to review on! To be perfectly honest with you, I was pretty lazy at the start, and rereading some of my older chapters made me realise that. But as soon as I got so many people reading this fic, I decided to put more effort into it. I don't mind the research I do, and honestly, most of the things I look up for this fic are quite interesting, so it doesn't bother me at all. At the end of the day, my readers enjoy the story just a little more, and I end up learning something new, so I guess its a win-win in that sense! After a while I grew quite fond of Himeko as a character and I wanted to take her more seriously as a character, although she was just a character I created. Once again, thank you so much for taking the time to leave such an encouraging message, these really do motivate me to improve and write better content for you all ^^

**Ziggy123-** Thank you! It really makes my day hearing how much you like this fanfic ^^

**Guest-** I'm really sorry for the late update, and I hope the a/n did explain my absence. However, I did decide to start writing this chapter after reading your review, and realising how long ago I updated. I know I'm a couple of days late, but happy belated birthday, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter ^^


	57. Underground Hospital

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 57**

_The Underground Hospital_

_..._

With Killua being injured and wrapped in bandages, Ikalgo sat on the hospital stool beside him, patiently waiting for him to finally wake up. The tiny, red octopus-like Chimera ant had been sat there for a couple of days, in hopes that Killua wasn't critically injured. After getting caught up in a battle with the Ortho siblings and being severely injured, Ikalgo couldn't just leave Killua to die such a lonely death, when in reality he just wanted to save his friend. The doctor at this underground clinic wasn't a stranger to him, and though they did tend to charge patients a ridiculous sum of money for treatment, he was absolutely sure that Killua was going to be alright. Despite all the blood he lost on the way to the underground hospital facility, Ikalgo had faith in Killua to wake up sooner or later.

Although both started off on completely different sides, one being a Chimera ant, and the other an infiltrator trying to stop them, they soon started to realise that despite them both being on completely different teams, they weren't as bad as they initially thought. Seeing Ikalgo's loyalty to his fellow ants, and how he refused to give away any of his mates' abilities in exchange for his own life, Killua slowly started to see a piece of Gon in him. Having fought many self-centred ants, one great example being Rammot, he was surprised to see that some of these ants still had some of their human side in them. Killua decided to save Ikalgo from falling into the lake full of sharks, telling him that he was indeed a very cool guy, and that maybe, if they weren't on opposite ends of the spectrum, he would have wanted to befriend him.

Killua's words were able to stick in Ikalgo's mind, and he too came to realise that humans weren't so bad as some ants claimed them to be. To be honest, although Killua called him the cool guy, he couldn't help but think of Killua as the cool one out of the two. After all, saving an enemy deserved so much more respect than merely saving a friend. Thus, he couldn't help but develop great respect not just that one action Killua did, but he started to respect him as a person. After getting a chance to repay Killua for his act of kindness, Ikalgo couldn't just let it slip away.

_"It's been two days now," _Ikalgo thought, before gradually starting to worry, _"I wonder how long it will take him to heal completely. His wounds were really bad." _He couldn't help but wonder this whenever he saw other patients getting discharged after getting only a few hours of treatment. A lot of them were injured, but none of their injuries were quite as severe as Killua's, who stood face to face with two Chimera ant officers. Well, Ikalgo did remember a girl being admitted with a couple of injuries, but once again, none of them looked as serious as Killua's. He noticed her being there even before they arrived, lying unconsciously in her hospital bed while being given multiple IV drips. Then that very morning, she woke up, and although she did look physically well, there was clearly something wrong with her mental state, judging by the absurd things she was saying. After a couple of hours of story telling, the girl managed to fall back asleep, making the hospital nice and peaceful again. Just that moment, he heard that same loud voice again, _"speak of the devil."_

"Under the sea ~," the young girl began singing, skipping around the clinic, "under the sea. Darling it's better, down where it's wetter, take it from me!~" As she continued to sing, many patients just looked at her oddly, wondering what the matter with her was. However, they soon began minding own their businesses again, remembering that all kinds of people stayed at that hospital. Having seen similar sorts of behaviour from this girl before, Ikalgo chose to try and avoid any sorts of eye contact with her, and after sensing her above average strength, he chose to stay away from her to avoid trouble. "Up on the shore they work all day, out in the sun they slave away ~. While we devoting, full time to floating, under the sea!~"

Ikalgo heard the sing-songy voice getting closer to him gradually, and it eventually came to a stop. He slowly, but carefully turned his head around, wondering what had happened to her. Seeing her large, overly-excited blue eyes staring right back at him made him want to jump out of his chair. "Takoyaki-kun!" Upon hearing those words being directed at him, Ikalgo started to feel very uneasy. He watched the girl slowly, but steadily walk towards him, her face being overjoyed to see him, although he never recalled meeting her before. Soon, Ikalgo felt uncomfortable still sitting on that seat, and although he wanted to watch over Killua, he decided to take a walk to try and get rid of this crazy little girl.

He began walking away, and the young, raven-haired girl matched his speed. _"Damn it, this girl is following me," _he cursed, before deciding to start jogging down the hallway. Seeing how the ant picked up his speed, the little girl did the same and started jogging along. Slightly irritated at this point, he increased his jog into a run, only to make the girl do the exact same. "Leave me alone, I don't know you!" He screamed, while running away from her.

"Come back Takoyaki-kun, I won't hurt you!" The girl said in a not so reassuring voice, "I'm Ariel's friend, I won't hurt you. I just want to take a quick bite out of you."

"Go away, you're crazy!" Ikalgo yelled back, hoping she would eventually leave him alone. "And my name isn't Takoyaki, neither am I an octopus. I'm a squid!"

"Grilled squid is good too!"

"I'm not food!"

Suddenly, the young girl stopped running, and not hearing any footsteps following him, Ikalgo decided to stop too and turned around. "I just want to become friends with Ariel's friends, Tako-kun!" she started to sob, "I want to see my friends!" Although she did come off as a crazy person at first, seeing her cry about wanting to see her friends made his heart melt a little. Though all the crazy stories she told her neighbours while sitting on her hospital bed sounded fabricated and made up on the spot, he could sense that she did want to see her friends, and that she didn't just cry those tears to get his attention. Despite all that constant mention of takoyaki, and a girl named Ariel, he couldn't help but feel a little sorry for her. Just when he was starting to lower his guard watching her cry, the girl grabbed firm hold of him, not wanting to let go. "Gotcha!"

However, this wasn't nearly as bad as he initially thought. Sure, a crazy girl was tightly wrapping her arms around her, but that was all she was doing. But noticing how awfully comfortable she was getting, Ikalgo tried his best to wiggle out of her arms. "Killua, help!" He struggled to form a few SOS calls, hoping his distress calls would at least wake the unconscious Killua up again. Killua didn't move an inch, but his words seemed to have triggered the little girl to loosen her grip.

"Killua is here?" She tilted her head in confusion, before proceeding to aim a question at the Chimera ant in her arms. "Where is Killua?" Ikalgo didn't know whether he should tell her. After all, she could just go and bother Killua who needed his rest. But that was when he noticed something. This little girl looked Killua's age, and the wounds she had were from a battle too.

For that very odd reason, he chose to tell her where he was resting. Using one of his tentacles, he pointed towards Killua's hospital bed. "He's there," he informed her, before making sure to tell her to be quiet around him. "But you have to be quiet because he's asleep!"

The girl slowly walked towards the hospital bed with Ikalgo still in her hands, and upon seeing his unconscious and heavily bandaged body, she started to panic. "Oh no, is he dead?" She asked, not realising that he was only trying to catch some rest. "Did the little mermaid not save him? Did he drown?" At this point, Ikalgo established that there was something very wrong with her head. Little mermaid? Drowing? She obviously hit her head somewhere and began living in her own fantasy world. Nonetheless, she proceeded to put her ear against his chest to check whether there was still some hope left in saving him. Hearing a slow-paced, but steady heart beat relieved her, but she then turned to the ant in still in her arms. "Quick Tako-kun, you have to do CPR on Killua before he dies!"

Having no say in this matter at all, the girl forcefully pushed Ikalgo's head towards Killua's, wanting him to perform CPR on Killua who could still possibly be saved according to her. "No, no, no, no, no," Ikalgo frantically kept shaking his head, as his face got closer to Killua's.

"Come on, Tako-kun, do it for Killua!" She said, as she continued pushing his face closer to Killua's. Just then, Killua awoke due to all the commotion around him.

"Ah!" He instinctively moved away before slapping away Ikalgo's face. Since the girl's grip was lose, it resulted in Ikalgo's body flying and slamming against the nearby wall.

"Yaaaay!" The little girl exclaimed in joy. "Killua is alive. It's a medical miracle!" She announced to the whole room, before running away, yelling in happiness. "Woooooooooooo!"

_"What the hell is going on?"_ Killua wondered to himself, before groaning at the throbbing headache he got all of the sudden. His body felt stiffer than usual, and then he finally noticed most of his body being wrapped in bandages. He was surprised to find himself sitting in a hospital bed, but that was when Ikalgo came to explain everything to him.

"How are you feeling?" He asked him, glad to see him finally awake. "Don't strain yourself!"

Hearing that oddly familiar voice, Killua turned his head to the side to see the octopus-like Chimera ant standing right beside him. "Tako!" He almost yelled in surprise, stunned to see a familiar face in this eerie place, "Where am I? How long was I out for?"

"Don't call me Tako!" Ikalgo snapped back, before informing him of his location, "You are at an underground clinic, I brought you here myself. You were unconscious for two whole days."

Hearing this, Killua's eyes widened in shock. "Two days?!" He couldn't afford the luxury of sleeping through two whole days, especially not now. "I have to go and find my friends!"

Ikalgo didn't feel very comfortable letting him go in this state and immiately stopped him as soon as he started getting out of bed, "You'll get out injured getting out at this state, idiot!" he scolded him, especially after seeing how badly injured he was with his own eyes. "And speaking of friends, is she one of them?" He asked curiously, pointing at the crazy, black-haired teen.

The girl was now shaking an elderly man's hand, still rambling her usual nonsense. "It's so good to finally meet you, King Neptune," she beamed in a high-pitched voice. "Ariel has told me so much about you , sir. But you've got some serious anger management issues, I'm sorry to break it to you."

Killua mentally facepalmed seeing that unexplainable sight in front of him. She was starting to bother pretty much everyone around her, and for some odd reason, the nurses just let her be all crazy like that. Feeling partly responsible for looking after her, he interrupted the conversation she was having with the elderly man, who didn't look like he minded the company he was getting. He tapped her shoulder, and waited for her to turn around. "That's enough washboard, we've got to get back and find Gon."

Himeko turned around hearing that very familiar voice of his, and smiled widely. She then proceeded to examine his injuries from top to bottom, comparing them to all the minor injuries she managed to get. "Poor Killua, you got hurt a lot," she said in a very expressive voice, dragging out half of her words. Seeing him in this pitiful state, she couldn't help but pout sadly before giving him a big bear hug. "There, there, Killua," she started patting his back gently, before going on to say something that sounded like it came straight out of a magic girl manga series. "May the power of friendship heal you!"

Being taken back and flustered by the sudden PDA, Killua didn't know how to function anymore. The slow but steady heart beat Himeko had heard just a couple of moments ago started to speed up. Part of him wanted to go along with it and pat the back of her head, but knowing that she was clearly out of her mind, he chose not to. Instead, he decided to knock her unconscious, hoping she'd wake up a lot more sanely. He carefully tried to hold her upright, making sure she doesn't fall onto the ground before placing her onto his empty hospital bed until she woke up.

"I need to go now!" He said, worrying about him having eaten away too much time already. But at the same time, he couldn't leave Himeko behind either, especially not in this state.

"You were on the verge of death because of blood loss," Ikalgo reminded him out of worry, "If you leave now, your wounds will open up!"

Overhearing their conversation, a small, stout female dressed in a nurse uniform approached the two. "So you are finally awake? You can't leave until you pay the fee," she informed them, before she took notice of Himeko lying in his bed. "I'm assuming that you two know each other, so shall I just add the fees onto one bill?"

"Bill?" Killua raised his brow.

"Your medical bill comes up to 1,800,000 Jenny. Two days treatment, the bed, change of bandages and et cetera," she explained before going on to list Himeko's expenses. "The girl's bill comes up to 2,200,000 Jenny. Staying for nearly three days, use of the bed and all the IV drips we've tried on her." She went on to explain. "Surprisingly, none of the regular drips worked although we tried putting her on them for more than a day, so we had to use a few drips much stronger than the usual drips. Not even a fully grown and built man would have needed this many."

The nurse made it sound more serious than it actually was, causing Killua to worry. "Why? What happened to her?"

"I don't know," she shrugged indifferently, "according to the men that carried her here, she almost drowned. They managed to fish her out and perform CPR, but seeing how her skin was turning pale, they carried her here." She continued. "The water at this time of year isn't even that cold, so we are assuming she got hypothermia due to sudden exhaustion. We warmed her up, gave her some drips, and the drips that actually ended up working woke her up this morning and caused her to believe she was saved from drowning by some little mermaid princess, and that she was still in some underwater palace. It wasn't much of a surprise, with the amount of medicine her body needed, she was bound to hallucinate. Either way, it took a lot of trouble to save that girl, so we expect you to pay up."

_"So the drug caused her to act so odd,"_ it finally began making some more sense. _"She was hallucinating all this time, and I guess the confusion was caused by the drug too."_

The nurse then changed the topic back to their medical bill, "so your total is 4,000,000 Jenny. Would you like to pay by cash, card or cheques?" Seeing their blank expressions made leave another option open. "If you don't have money, you can pay with your organs too." Killua and Ikalgo found this rather unsettling to hear, but then again this was an underground clinic. No one here cared about ethics. "If not yours, that girl's organs would easily cover both yours and her bill. Not sure what exactly her body is made of to be needing this much for her to fully function, but whatever it is, it definitely is worth a lot more than any normal human organ. A human only requires one kidney while the liver can regenerate itself, so what's there to worry about?".

"There's no way I'd do that!" He angrily refuted her offer, wondering what nerve she had to ask him to give up his organs, let alone Himeko's. "I don't have my wallet right now, so please allow me to go and get it. I'll transfer the money over once I get my wallet."

"That's the oldest trick in the world, I can't ensure that you'll end up paying the sum. I cannot let you all leave," the nurse stubbornly said, "you can go and get it while you leave your friend behind with us."

Although it did sound like a fair offer at first, Killua and Ikalgo felt uneasy leaving Himeko behind, especially after hearing the hospital staffs' interest in her organs. Seeing her still under the effect of the drug made them realise that she probably couldn't look after herself like this, neither did they know when the drug's effect was going to stop. The head nurse's uncooperativeness made it even more difficult for Killua to find a solution out of this mess. "Just let me use a phone!"

The nurse showed him to a pay phone, and Killua hurried to the phone before dialling Gon's phone number. The phone rang, and he just waited for Gon to pick up now. "It's 10,000 Jenny per minute," the nurse reminded, much to his dismay.

"Would you knock it off already!" Killua yelled back, seeing how she started charging him for everything he did now. The nurse just smiled and walked off, finally giving him some peace and quiet. Just then, Gon picked up from the other line and answer.

"Hello?"

"Oh Gon, it's me!"

"Killua?!" Gon yelled out his name at the sound of Killua's voice, before bombarding him with questions, "What happened to you? Where are you? Are you okay?" Having lost contact with him for over two days, Gon had obviously started worrying that something might have happened to his two friends.

"Don't worry about me, I'll explain everything when we meet up again," he tried to calm his friend down. "A strong enemy gave me some trouble, so I ended up in the hospital for a few days. Also, Kou is here too, so don't worry about her either."

"I see," his news was finally able to calm him down, "I'm glad you decided to contact me, I was worried sick about you two. Are you sure you are alright now?"

"Yeah, I've recovered, so I'll be back soon." He couldn't help but be relieved that Gon had nothing happen to him while he was unconscious, "Did anything happen with you?"

"Nothing much," Gon smiled, before looking back at Knuckle and Meleron, the green chameleon-like Chimera ant wearing the grey track-suit, "But we managed to find a new ally and he's currently bonding with Knuckle. We also managed to think of a plan to defeat the King, so we should meet up soon so we can get you guys' opinion on it too."

"Sure, it's good to hear that you managed to think of a plan," he commented, before turning to his side and almost having a heart attack. "God, I told you not to sneak up on me like this," he sighed, seeing how Himeko was now fully awake. She did look well enough now, so Killua decided to inform her about the call. "Gon's on the line right now, do you want to talk to him?"

Himeko didn't respond, nonetheless, Killua handed the phone to her knowing that she must have wanted to talk to Gon as well. "Hello, it's me."

"Hey, Kou!" Gon beamed, glad to hear her voice again, "Are you feeling better now?"

"I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet to go everything," hearing her sudden nonsense talk, Gon remained quiet hoping she'd start to make sense again, but she just continued rambling. "They say that time's supposed to heal ya, but I ain't done much healing."

Just then, Killua beat her on the head, making her crouch down on the floor due to the throbbing pain, "You moron, that witch charges 10,000 Jenny per minute, and you are just spouting nonsense?!" He could hear Gon trying to calm him down from the other side of the line, hoping that they don't argue much in his absence. "Sorry Gon, the medication they gave her made her a little absentminded," he informed him, before remembering why he actually called. "By the way Gon, can you transfer money into a bank account."

"Whose? Yours?"

"No, I need to pay medical bills."

"Oh. Well, I guess you don't have your wallet, so it can't be helped."

"Washboard doesn't have her wallet either, so you need to cover both of ours."

"How much?"

"Around four million, not including the phone charges."

Gon was quiet for a brief moment before Killua could hear him sigh, "I guess it can't be helped."

"Cool, if you manage to make the payment now we can meet up sometime today." Gon agreed to pay the excessively large sum of money to cover their medical bill, and as soon as he confirmed the details, they ended the call. Seeing Killua end that successful call, the nurse who watched from a distance smiled to herself, before making her way to the office to wait for the money to be deposited into the account. Once that was sorted, Killua bent down to check whether Himeko was okay, or whether the impact of his punch made her condition any worse. "Hey washboard, you okay?"

She shook her head, "my head hurts!" Based on the baby voice she was using, Killua assumed she still needed some time. The nurse informed him that she was on the medication for over two days now, when in actuality one pack was supposed to be more than enough for an ordinary human being. She wasn't as injured as him, so all the IV drips they tried on her must have costed a fortune. He then saw her scan her eyes around the area, until they finally landed on Ikalgo. A grin immediately appeared on her face as she snatched him away and showed him off to Killua, "Look Killua, Tako-kun is my new friend. He is Ariel's friend and Ariel saved me from drowning and brought me to her big underwater palace."

Killua just glanced at Ikalgo and sighed before helping her back up on her feet, "Come on Kou, we have to go back now."

"Go?" She asked in utter confusion, "But why?"

Killua began recalling the movie adaptation of the Little Mermaid, before briefly coming up with something that would get her to agree in her current state. "Well, the evil witch Ursula is planning to manipulate Ariel's prince and marry him. We have to go back on land and help Ariel and her prince get married." Having watched the movie with his younger sister Alluka, Killua vaguely remembered the plot as well as some of the characters' names. Though he was used to talking like that to his sister, he couldn't help but feel a little odd having to talk this way to Himeko.

"That's awful, we have to stop Ursula before she marries Eric!" She started protesting.

"Yes, let's first change our hospital clothes to our normal clothes and then get going, okay?" He asked, to which she surprisingly nodded very obediently. He gave her a smile to go with the act, slowly helping her walk back to where the hospital beds were lined up, still going with the act. "If Ariel and Eric get married, what do you want to wear to it?"

"I want to wear a blue dress!" She beamed, "Are Killua and Tako-kun coming too? You can all wear suits! And will Ariel allow Gon to come, oh and Kurapika and Leorio? What about Sensei, and Toshi and Natsu and Haru and Kite too, will she invite everyone?"

Although he couldn't help but find her way of talking pretty amusing, he still continued to go with the act, "I'm sure she'll invite everyone if we ask nicely." He proceeded to take her to her own bed, telling her to change and get ready to go back up on land to save Ariel and her prince. Himeko agreed, letting go of Ikalgo so he could finally catch some air after being suffocated in her arms for too long. "You have to change your clothes without anyone else seeing you, understood?"

"Okay!" She beamed, and after giving all his orders, Killua returned to the men's area to change his own clothes, hoping she would at least be capable of doing that without causing too much trouble. Ikalgo quietly followed right behind him, wanting to find the perfect opportunity to talk him out of leaving so soon. However, he silently watched Killua remove his bandages one by one, unveiling his healed body. Facing the pair of Chimera ant officers caused a big ordeal on his body, and Ikalgo expected at least another two weeks for him to be fully healed up. However, he was left speechless seeing how there was not even one single scratch on Killua's body anymore. Amazed by not just his body's fast healing rate, but also his very developed body at just a young age made him wonder how much the thirteen year old must have trained to achieve it. Killua began stretching his stiffened muscles, hoping that would wake his body up after the two full days of sleep, while Ikalgo just watched him flex his muscles in awe.

"Killua, I can't find my clothes," their peaceful moment was once again interrupted, "I think the fish nurse took them." After not finding her normal clothes anymore, Himeko's search led her back to Killua and Ikalgo, although one wasn't as happy to see her now out of all possible times. The startled, topless Killua searched around for his shirt, before quickly throwing it on in record timing. He then let out a relieved sigh, trying to recover from that embarrassing split second of his life. Seeing his flustered face and pinkish cheeks, Himeko gave him a smile reassuring him that there was nothing to be ashamed of, "Don't worry Killua, I have abs too so there is no reason for you to be so embarrassed!"

Killua tried to calm himself down, _"Don't worry Killua, don't stress about it. She's only going to act this way for a little while until the side effects wear off, you just have to bear with it for a bit longer." _Before she had the opportunity to flash her own abs, Killua pushed her all the way back to her end of the room, telling her to wait over there until he was back. Himeko waited there, and Killua set out to search for one of the nurses who wasn't with a patient right now. After finding one, he explained the situation and requested her to assist Himeko in finding her clothes, and asked whether she could watch over her while she got dressed. Being fully aware of Himeko's state, the nurse in training agreed, and made her way over to the young girl seated obediently on her bed. Killua then made his way back to wait with Ikalgo until she was done getting changed.

The nurse aided Himeko in the search for her clothes, and eventually they found the strange outfit she wore during her time in the game _Demon Tower_. Seeing how inappropriate that was to wear, as well as seeing how damaged the clothes were, the nurse wondered whether she had a spare set of clothes with her, "Sorry hun, but do you remember bringing a spare set of clothes?"

Himeko thought hard about this question, only being able to selectively remember certain events from the back of her head. But eventually, the young girl did remember having to change out of her normal clothes into the ridiculous costume that matched with the game theme. Her eyes scanned for the side bag that was provided to her in the game, and as soon as she spotted it, she pointed straight at it, "In there, I think there is a set of gym clothes."

"You mean in your bag?" The nurse asked to confirm her answer, to which Himeko nodded in response. She proceeded to open the canvas bag, rummaging through the useless knick-knack she found inside it. At the very bottom of the bag though, she managed to find Himeko's t-shirt, hoodie, gym shorts and trainers, and one by one she scooped them all out. After closing the curtains separating all the beds, the nurse helped her change out of her hospital garments, before removing the couple of bandages wrapped around her body. Himeko was capable of putting her clothes back on, and she remained to see whether she would stumble across any other problems. Realising that this girl was going to leave in her current state, she couldn't help but become increasingly worried on how a thirteen year old boy was going to handle her. She first went on to check whether the younger girl had a high temperature, then asked whether she was experiencing any pain. A two day recovery period for everything she was diagnosed with on the first day was quite odd, and the nurse worried that Killua could be rushing without actually checking up on Himeko's health first. "Does you arm hurt, or your abdomen?" She questioned, "Do you feel pain anywhere?"

Himeko touched her head before answering her question, "Only my head hurts, the rest is fine!" After hearing this, the nurse stepped outside, closing the curtains behind her and left in a hurry, trying to keep an eye out for the head nurse. Ikalgo and Killua watched her unusual behaviour from afar, but not knowing her motives just yet, they chose to stay still and not act on impulse. Still cautious of her surrounding, the nurse returned to the patient bed with a large water bottle, entered and made sure no one could peek through the curtains.

She handed a large, red pill to her, "I need you to take this pill," she instructed slowly, before opening the large one litre bottle of water, "I also need you to drink all the water in this bottle, understood? It will make your headache go away." Surprisingly, unlike most patients, Himeko listened carefully and didn't throw the pill away. Instead, she put the red pill into her mouth and swallowed with the help of a mouthful of water. The nurse remained by her side for the next ten minutes, constantly reminding Himeko to drink all the water in the bottle. The lack of water she drunk over the past couple of days could have resulted in the throbbing headache, while she hoped that the stimulant she gave her in the form of a pill could increase her alertness temporary, at least until the effects of the previous medications wore off.

At last, after five more minutes, Killua and Ikalgo saw the curtains opening and the nurse running away to dispose of the empty water bottle, while Himeko walked out too this time, following the nurse in training. The nurse handed her a scrap piece of paper and spent a good minute talking to her, before leaving to help out the other patients. Himeko then looked around the room, spotting Killua and his new companion before walking towards them. Seeing how she wasn't so 'happy-go-lucky' anymore, Killua figured that maybe she was back to normal already. They patiently waited for her to get closer to conclude her current state. "Let's go and save Ariel!" she beamed cheerfully, and hearing her unusually upbeat voice, the two just sighed, knowing that she was still in the same state as before. "Just kidding, I'm okay now!"

After hearing that surprisingly serious voice, Killua and Ikalgo looked up, "What happened, why where you in there for so long?" Killua questioned her.

"She gave me a stimulant and asked me to drink some water," she started to explain why she took so long to just change into a different set of clothes, but Himeko continued to whisper her clarification. "The head nurse doesn't know about this, so she told me to keep quiet incase she asks me to pay for the extra tablet and treatment. The stimulant is only supposed to work for a short period of time, but by the time it stops working I'm sure the other medication would have stopped affecting my body too."

"Then what did she tell you just now, and that piece of paper?"

"She asked whether I strained my body before being admitted into hospital. I was about to drown, but that's another story, however the water I fell into wasn't cold enough to cause the sudden hypothermia, especially not on someone like me. If the body is at the point of exhaustion when it can no longer generate any heat itself, the body temperature will start dropping as a result."

"Are you sure you didn't do anything to exhaust you body?" Killua asked her to think back really carefully, "For example during the fight with the ant?"

"That reminds me, which ant did you fight?" Ikalgo asked curiously, wanting to cross out names on the list of Chimera ants that were still alive and a potential threat to them.

"It was a fox with the weird video game," Himeko answered, "He wasn't particularly strong either, and I remember fighting for much longer than that previously and I was still okay after that. Even my training schedule back at the dojo is more intense than that."

"That sounds a lot like Foxy," Ikalgo added, earning a nod from Himeko as she recalled hearing that name before. "He is a squadron leader, but not particularly strong physically. Physically he is on par with an officer, but it's his _Nen_ ability that is considered quite difficult to beat."

"Yeah, he cheated a lot during the game." She said, before showing them the piece of paper in her hand. "He was able to trap a couple of men in his game too, and I helped them get out of the game. I guess they fished me out of the water and admitted me into this hospital."

The pair began to read through the note left by the men, _'We had to check out of the clinic while you were still unconscious, but hopefully you were able to recover. We regret not being able to thank you personally, but we'll be forever grateful for your help. If you haven't found us, we would still be stuck in that monster's game.'_ Once they were done reading the cheesy note left behind by her rescuers, she put it safely away in her pocket.

"Well, just be careful from now on," Killua began to warn her, "If none of those men were able to get you here on time, you would have been dead by now. Make sure to pay more attention to your body from now on!"

That was when the head nurse chose to interrupt, "I've received your payments, so you are all free to leave!" With that, she left and headed back to her own office.

"I guess we should leave now," Killua announced as soon as everyone was ready to exit the clinic, "we are supposed to meet up with Gon today."

Himeko agreed with his suggestion, "Yeah, sounds like a plan!" As Killua led the way to the exit, and Himeko followed close behind him, Ikalgo was sadly tagging along behind the pair seeing how they were gradually increasing their speed. Not wanting to be left behind, Ikalgo increased his speed and followed them out of the door that led them out of the underground clinic. However, after noticing that he was lagging behind, Killua and Himeko stopped walking to wait for him.

"What are you doing?" Killua asked, confused at how slowly the Chimera ant was walking, "Let's go, I'll introduce you to all my other friends!"

"Huh?" Ikalgo looked slightly dumbfounded by his statement, and taken back to some extent. On one hand, he felt slightly shy hearing Killua's sudden invitation, but on the other hand he couldn't help but feel slightly happy about it. However, there was just one thing that stopped him. Being a Chimera ant, he didn't exactly know whether it was acceptable for him to go with a pair of humans no matter how kind they were to him. "But-"

"Fine then, suit yourself!" Killua sighed, before opening the exit, "Well, in that case thank you!"

"Is it really okay for me to come along?" Ikalgo asked, still hesitating to go along with them, "I mean, I'm an ant."

"In that case, I guess I'm the only one who thought of the two of us as friends. It's up to you whether you come with us or now." That being said, Killua exited the long hallway into the alleyway and Himeko briefly glanced at Ikalgo before following after him. But hearing this straight from Killua's mouth, Ikalgo couldn't help but feel touched his words. He never would have guessed that the young boy actually considered him as one of his precious friend, and now that he knew how much respect Killua had for him, he just didn't want to throw away that bond because of their small differences.

Not wanting to lose sight of them, he hurried along and ran down the long hallway, right out of the door, yelling for them to wait for him, "Wait for me, I want to come along too!" But once he stepped outside, he was surprised to see that the two actually waited.

"Let me get one thing straight," Killua started off, "If something like this happens once again, I won't bother thanking you, and if I ever end up helping you like this in the future, you don't have to bother thanking me either. From now on, we have to rely on each other, and support each other, but if we thanked each other for every little thing it would just be lame. That's just how friends are."

Ikalgo couldn't help but feel honoured that someone finally thought of him as a friend. He had always wished for at least one friend he could rely on, and a friend that would rely on him, and seeing how a human asked to befriend him instead of his own kind brought him to tears. He then looked at Himeko, wondering what her opinion on him was all this time, but she just smiled and shrugged at him, "If someone like Killua actually trusts you, you can't actually be a bad person. Chimera ant or not, you carried him all the way to the clinic, so that deserves a lot of praise. You are actually pretty cool!"

That was enough to trigger Ikalgo's water works, "What do I do Killua?" he began to sob, "I'm so happy, I think I'll die." Startled to see him cry all of the sudden, Himeko was the first one to rush to his side and comfort the little Chimera ant by patting his head to calm him down. As there was no end to his tears, Killua eventually ended up joining her in the hopes of calming the octopus-like Chimera ant down. But once they were able to get him to stop crying, Killua proceeded to give him a warning before he blindly followed the pair back to Gon.

"Before we go back, I want to make something clear," he started to inform him of all the dangers that lied ahead. "The world you are about to step into is a lot worse than the world of the Chimera ants. There is a big difference between people who are willing to risk their lives, and people who have already thrown away their lives. I just wanted to let you know before you blindly follow us to your possible death." No matter how shocking the news was, Ikalgo couldn't help but feel like he had to go with them. It was a way to start a new chapter in his life, and after having people offer him something he was wishing for all this time, he decided to not let this opportunity slip through his fingers. "But remember, I warned you, so you can't blame me if anything happens to you in the future."

"Okay," Ikalgo nodded.

"Killua is being tsundere again!" Himeko announced, commenting on his hot and cold behaviour, causing the mood of the situation to lighten up again.

"Shut up!" He shot right back at her, "Anyways, let's get going. We've wasted enough time here."

* * *

**A/n-** Didn't think this chapter would be so long, but since it ended up being this long I decided to upload this as one chapter. I know this isn't exactly an April fool's prank, but it is quite random and silly compared to most other chapters, so I decided to publish it today as it fits with the date. With all the serious chapters to come, we all need to take a breather and laugh our asses off!

Happy April fool's, I hope you all managed to prank someone today ^^ Also Happy late Easter!

**Review Corner- **

**SilverDewDrop- **Haha, jokes aside though try to get your sleep. Sleep deprivation is no joke!

And Kurapika will be mentioned a few more times, but physically he will only appear in the sequel. And with Kou, her umbrella weapon has to be a certain shade of blue and has to have a certain design on it, but the dark blue umbrella with frills she wanted was replaced by the childish baby blue umbrella with stars on them, because at the end of the day, that she is very childish.

**havanatitania-** Thank you for your feedback, I didn't really consider going too deep into the demon's perspective because their programming all became a mess after the ant's death, but I will try and explain something like this more the next time I get a chance to do it. That's probably going to be quite soon!

And congrats, you managed to somehow guess my (obvious) chapter, but you probably didn't expect Kou to act all weird. Anyways, I did promise a one shot so if you still want that, you can just drop me a PM on what you want, and I'll write it for you ^^

**AJPJweallluvJJ-** You actually thought of Kingsman too! I modelled the weapon after the umbrella Peach used in Super Princess Peach (This old DS game where Peach has to save Mario) but then I actually remembered Kingsman having that black, fire-shooting umbrella too. She only has two charms for a specific reason you'll know during the Election arc, but if I find a good use for the stun watch, I'll include it in the sequel ^^

**neonkoi- **Nope, the tsundere ex-assassin didn't actually rescue her since he was half dead himself, but I hope you still enjoyed the chapter nonetheless. Thank you for not rushing me, I'll try to update here and there while revising the rest of the story.

**Queechi-** I used Demons because Demon Tower sounds a lot cooler than Robo Tower, or Knight Tower. Would you consider buying a game called Robo Tower or Knight Tower? And don't worry, I'm broke too so I feel ya. I ran out of my favourite perfume and now I'm using my mums until I go back to work, so I don't smell like a pile of shit in my all girls school that smells like rainbows, flowers and sunshine.

Your schedule just made me realise how much I was whining about having exams. Thanks for making me feel like a whining baby! Well, I hope you eventually get your Doom game, and did well in that test, and as for the last part, I used her drowning to cheaply segway into the hospital scene, not the Killua vs freaky incest fish sibling fight scene. You were kinda close though!

**Guest-** Haha, you are berry, berry welcome, hun! ^^

**Deceivingaura-** Nope, as an author I try not to be biased towards a certain ship because it would affect how much they appear in the story and how I portray them as. Killua and Kurapika (Leorio and Gon too of course!) are both awesome characters anyway, so I wouldn't be able to choose between them! Kurapika will appear a lot in the sequel as I've planned out quite a few arcs (around 4/5), and I'm quite excited to write it too! Good luck with your exams next month, and please don't run out of patients, Dr. Deceivingaura. If you do, then you can check what's wrong with my brain. *another awkward silence as no one laughed at my lame joke*

Well... toodles!


	58. East Gorteau

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 58**

_East Gorteau_

_..._

After Killua managed to find a way to pay both hospital bills with Gon's money, the head nurse decided to discharge them. However, as Killua and Himeko started to take their leave, Ikalgo began to hesitate. It took a few words from Killua to actually give the little octopus the courage to start a new chapter in his life, and join the two to go back and join up with the main group. With a new comrade on their side, the trio headed to their designated meet-up spot, where they would meet with the others. Whilst heading back, the young teens began to fill Ikalgo in on every single detail of their current mission. Starting off with how Killua and Gon coincidentally met Kite, and their first encounter with the Chimera ants by the nest, following on to Himeko's reason of accompanying her seniors from the dojo on the mission, solely for gaining more experience as a contract Hunter, but also having something to include on her CV, so she could be hired for future missions. They spoke about Kite, the leader for their initial mission two months ago, as well as the group of amateur hunters he watched over, and seeing how smoothly everything was going at this point, no one expected their visit to NGL to crumble apart like it did.

Ikalgo could recall certain names Himeko mentioned while telling him the story, from Rammot to Yunju and his subordinates, but last but not least, she went on to mention Neferpitou, whose name was more than enough to send an icy chill down even the squadron leaders' spines. As Killua continued to tell him about their encounter with Neferpitou, the story started to take a much darker turn. Kite's abandonment; this was more than enough to trigger the sequence of events leading them to where they were now. Their sudden silence made Ikalgo aware of their guilt, and they were still reflecting for what happened to Kite back then. _'How would things have turned out if we were stronger back then?' _or _'What if we managed to get to the nest before Neferpitou was even born, would this whole mission have been over back then?', 'Were we too simple-minded back then? Did we really think this was going to be easy?'. _But despite their guilty conscience, after imagining what would have happened if they hadn't followed Kite's orders, part of them was glad to have been led on the mission by him. They knew very well how hard it was for Gon, but at the same time, Kite's faith was inevitable even if they chose to remain behind. Whilst the past was crystal clear to them, thinking about it wasn't going to heal Kite's physical condition, and neither would it restore Gon's mental state. All they could do know was worry about how uncertain their future was, _'What will happen to us now?'_

Killua noticed how serious the discuss had gotten all of the sudden, and chose to divert to a less touchy subject. Until now, he just mentioned Gon by name, not actually telling his new friend what kind of a person he really was. Part of him could readily relate to Ikalgo. To some, their past actions would be considered quite taboo, with Killua having been part of an assassination business, while Ikalgo had a similar background as an ant officer. Being well aware of the sins they committed in the past, it was difficult for them to predict how people would view them. There was a time where even Killua was conscious of how people would look at him after knowing his past, and this was the main reason why he wanted Gon to be happy. Gon's open-mindedness was something he had respected for such a long time, and he wanted Ikalgo to know that there were people who would accept him, too, looking past his exterior appearance.

Though Killua was busy bragging about Gon, forgetting his initial motive to just lighten the mood a little, Ikalgo found himself admiring Killua instead. He noticed how highly the pair spoke about their friends; something he always craved for. Their courage to remain behind to acts as a pillar of support for their friend gained his respect. There was one thing only Himeko had noticed this entire time, and it was how much Gon had rubbed off on Killua. In the past, he would have never aided his enemy without hesitation. Killua would often find friends through Gon, unless they somehow managed gain his trust, but that itself rarely happened. He somehow managed to see some good in Ikalgo, which led him to spare him, however, he wasn't the type to trust and approach anyone so readily. In that way, Ikalgo had the same respect for Killua, as Killua had for Gon. It reminded her that this wasn't the Hunter exam anymore, everyone including herself have evolved since then; some for the better, and others for the worse. Ignorance is a bliss, but it was time to halt the daydream and prepare for the hell that awaited them.

After that, the trio engaged in various small talks, until they finally reached their destination. It was already late afternoon, and getting there by foot took a lot longer than initially expected. On the way, Himeko used a public phone booth to phone Gon and inform him that they were nearly there, so he was already waiting for their appearance at the entrance of the town. "Killua, Kou, you finally made it back!" He beamed, seeing the pair approach him with not even one scratch on them. The fact that both of his friends somehow found themselves in a hospital after fighting with ants had him worried, but when Killua said he was fully healed, he obviously meant it. When he ran up to the pair to greet them properly, he finally noticed another set of legs hiding behind the two. Gon finally remembered Killua mentioning a new friend he made during the course of the last couple of days, and out of curiosity, he moved past his two friends just to get a glance of who this mystery friend of Killua was.

It was a very small, red Chimera ant, disguised in a cream coloured knitted beanie, yellow hooded jacket and blue washed denim jeans. Seeing Gon's curiosity, Killua decided to introduce the two, "This is Ikalgo, he is the friend I was telling you about over the phone."

Gon naturally considered any of Killua's friends to be his own, "I'm Gon Freecss, it's nice to finally meet you, Ikalgo!" Having befriended another Chimera ant himself, Gon wasn't all too surprised with Ikalgo. Meleron was quite easygoing, too, and he was aware that many ants were beginning to set out and turn their backs to the King after the Queen's death. Knowing that there were a number of ants on their side already, including Colt who was one of the Queen's most loyal subordinate, Gon was very welcoming.

After meeting Gon for the first time, the little ant immediately understood why Killua and Himeko were so fond of him. "It's nice to finally meet you too, Gon."

"That reminds me, are you feeling better, Kou?" Gon asked in concern, seeing how she was being quiet all this time. "You didn't sound so well over the phone, and Killua mentioned that it had something to do with the medication they gave you."

"I'm feeling a lot better!" She gave him a small smile to show that she was feeling well. "Because of me Killua and Ikalgo had to slow down on the way here, so that's why we are a little late. But they were both really, really patient with me, and Killua didn't screw at me like he usually does." Hearing this, Gon couldn't help but return a smile in return. She did seem a lot saner than she sounded over the phone that morning, but then again, knowing that Killua was with her all this time, he didn't really expect anything less. Although the two fought like cat and mouse, at the end of the day, he knew they looked out for each other all the time. "By the way, you didn't have any problems over the past couple of days, did you? I mean, you look well, but since both Killua and I managed to get caught up in something I was a little worried."

"Well, I did run into some ants," he admitted, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck, "But it wasn't a big deal since I took care of them without a problem. I was just worried when I didn't hear back from you two for two days, I already headed back to meet up with Knuckle and those guys back then." Hearing that he managed to stay out of big trouble was somehow able to relieve Killua. He initially didn't want Gon to assist him in warning the villagers, solely because he didn't want anything to happen to him when blinded by anger. "Speaking of Knuckle and the others, let's go back to meet up with them. I have someone I want to introduce to you guys, too!"

Gon ended up leading the three through the abandoned town back to their hideout. There wasn't even one soul in sight, everyone seemed to have moved along to prepare for the upcoming selections. With only less than two days remaining, it wasn't surprising after all. However, walking through it felt quite eerie, especially since they knew that citizens willingly walked, out not knowing that they were going to die soon. This must have been the state of towns all over the country at that point, and it reminded them of how close the selection date really was. Their hideout was just a random building located towards the heart of the town, but it was quite hard to find with all the different turns they had to take just to get there in the end. Gon continued to lead them to the second floor of the messy building where the others were already gathered.

"Guys, we are back!" Gon announced as they reached the untidy room, with everyone gathered together in just one corner. The men who were patiently waiting for their arrival looked up, seeing Gon enter the room followed by Killua, Himeko and last but not least, the nervous Ikalgo. Gon went and took a seat next to Knuckle, and Killua took a seat next to him with Ikalgo not leaving his side. Meanwhile, Himeko went and sat next to Natsume seeing how there was much more space there.

"Looks like we are all here now," Shoot started off as everyone was beginning to settle down. "We managed to come up with quite a lot while you were both gone, so I guess we should begin by filling you two in on everything."

Killua interrupted him before he could start going over the plan, "Before you begin, how certain are you guys that this plan will work out?"

"It's the best plan we could think of for the time being," Toshiro answered, before referring to the layout of the palace they managed to their hands on thanks to Colt. "During your absence, Knov-san tried to get as close to the throne room as possible, so we can infiltrate with ease using his _Nen_ ability, but he only managed to get to the central staircase leading to the second floor. We are assuming that Pitou's _En_ prevented him from going in any further." He then went on to point at the area on the sheet near the stairs, "This will be our starting point."

"Our job is to separate the Royal Guards from the King and keep them occupied, so Chairman Netero can fight with the King," Shoot continued from where Toshiro left off. "As decided previously, Knuckle and I will deal with Menthuthuyoupi, Toshiro and Natsume will distract Apednoiraud, Morel-sensei and Knov-san will distract Shiapouf, and Gon, Himeko and Killua have been assigned to Neferpitou. But this is where our new companion comes in."

That was when Gon remembered, "That's right, I haven't actually introduced him to you properly!" He turned to the tall, and slender chameleon-ant, in the grey tracksuit. "This is Meleoron, we met a few days ago in the forest. He was a squadron leader."

"Squadron leader?" Himeko asked in surprise. Based on appearance alone, she could tell that Meleoron was pretty laid back, a trait she would never expect a squadron leader to possess. But then again, she remembered that the ant she fought was a squadron leader, too, so it wasn't much of a shock anymore now that she thought about it again. "You must be pretty strong in that case."

"Think Kou, what's a skill chameleons have?" Natsume tried to give her a little hint, hoping she might figure it out without further explanation.

"Camouflaging." Once she answered, Meleoron chose to demonstrate his ability to her, as well as to Killua. He seemed to have inhaled a large portion of air before holding his breath, and shortly he disappeared into thin air. After being in daze for a short period of time, the two tried their best to find a way to somehow detect his presence, while the others just watched in amusement. After using _En _and _Gyo, _the pair realised that this wasn't just an advanced version of their regular old _Zetsu_. Himeko, who was sitting the closest to Meleoron out of the two even went as far as trying catch a whiff of the air around him. "I can't smell his body odour either!"

"You're sitting just a couple of feet away from him as well," Killua pointed out, even more surprised to hear that. "Your sense of smell isn't as good as Gon's, but I can't deny that your nose is more sensitive than an average person's."

Hearing this, Meleoron exhaled the air, causing him to reappear once again. He had been there all this time, but there was no way for the pair to prove that he was indeed sitting right there. "I just showed you my _Nen_ ability, it's called _Perfect Plan. _I can stay invisible like that for as long as I hold my breath, and also, I can use my ability to make others disappear like that, too. I don't like the way the King has been dealing with things, and I believe my ability will help you with your objective to defeat the King. I was watching you two, as well as Gon for some time the other night, and I wanted to judge you based on how strong you are, so I can assist you."

Gon then continued from there, "Meleoron chose to follow me after we split up, and after I fought a pair of ants, he approached me and offered to help us."

"Back then it was quite difficult to choose who I should follow," Meleoron admitted, "Killua had somehow managed to notice me despite my ability, so I chose to leave him alone after I deemed him to be too dangerous to follow. When having to choose between Gon and Himeko, Gon looked the most reasonable."

"That was probably one of the best decisions you made in your life!" Natsume commented, trying to use the situation to poke some fun at his student. "If you went after Kou thinking she was just a girl, you might not actually be here right now," he pointed out, before beginning to laugh. Knowing there was some truth to his statement, Killua and Toshiro tried their best to hold in their laughter. "That girl can't read the between the lines sometimes, she can be so dense."

"You know, that's actually quite true!" Gon somehow found himself agreeing with Natsume's comment, "Kou can be really unreasonable sometimes. She once told me that one of the only reasons she uses a sword is because she looks cool holding one!" Hearing Gon bluntly adding more fuel to the fire, Natsume continued to cry out of laughter, having to hold his stomach because of the stitches he was starting to get. Toshiro and Killua couldn't hold in their laughter anymore either, and the pair followed Natsume's laughing fit. After seeing how those three were practically on the floor laughing, the Knuckle, Shoot, Ikalgo and Meleoron couldn't help but be amused by his comment, too. Gon looked around the room and realised the effect his bluntness had on his friends, all except one of course.

Himeko immediately shot up from her seat and made her way towards him, pulling hard on his cheeks to wipe that sheepish smile off his face. "You're the last person I want to hear that from, you're the epitome of unreasonable. Your name can practically be Gon Unreasonable Freecss, that's how unreasonable you are!" She began to yell at him, pulling harder on his cheeks. "And I said the sword thing back when we were in Yorkshin, it's been nearly a year since then, so you can't use that against me anymore!" Once he began to resist, Himeko eventually let go before returning to her seat. However, seeing how the others didn't seem like they would stop laughing, she faked a cough to get their attention before continuing. "Either way, if he has the ability to appear and disappear like that, we could use it against the guards, and maybe even the King."

"That's exactly what we planned," Knuckle stated, before informing them of Meleoron's involvement in their plan. "If we manage to draw the guards away from the King, and while the King is distracted by something, someone strong enough might be able to get closer to him with Meleoron's help and strike."

Himeko tried to run the scenario in her head, with the four teams drawing the Royal Guards away from the throne room first, Chairman Netero fighting the King, and finally Meleoron's technique being used to catch the King off guard, maybe with the help of someone like Morel or Knuckle. "That sounds like such a simpleminded plan, but it might actually work out in our favour!"

"It does sound simple enough to carry out, but we have to consider the limitation of his ability as well!" Killua pointed out after also having thought about the plan for a while. "He'll only remain invisible while he holds his breath, which brings us to the question of how long he is capable of holding his breath."

To this, Meleoron gave his confident response, "Leave that to me!" He reassured, "If my ability is able to help defeat the King, I will work hard over the remaining hours to improve it, so I can enter the battle at my full potential." After the death of the Queen, many of the ant soldiers left the King's site due to his brutal ways of handling things. Meleoron, too let for this exact reason. Unlike a lot of the ants, Meleoron was able to remember his life before becoming a Chimera ant. As a human, he was once the foster child of the deceased Peggy, another squadron leader who was cold-heartedly murdered by the King. After witnessing the King's tyranny, Meleoron felt the need to leave his side and find someone strong enough to beat the Chimera ants. After watching Gon fight the ant soldiers, he knew it was right to join their side. He became set on spoiling the King's plans, even if it was going to be the last thing he was going to do. "So, what do you think?"

Himeko began to eye the layout of the palace, trying to visualise the plan one last time. She couldn't really predict where the Royal guards would be, but since the King would definitely be inside the throne room, she suspected that they'd be quite close to him. All Chairman Netero needed was for the guards to be preoccupied while he could fight the King. In that way, although the plan was scarily straight-forward, it could work smoothly if there was nothing to mess things up. She turned to Meleoron and was the first person to give her approval out of the pair, "This plan sounds pretty solid for the very vague information we have!"

With her approval, everyone turned to Killua who was still in deep thoughts. In contrast to her, he thought of all the possible things that could mess this plan up, knowing that it was impossible for plans to work out this smoothly. Either way, there was nothing else they could think of anyway; just like Himeko mentioned, the information they were working with was pretty vague. However, as long as everyone knew that things might not actually work out in their favour, it was fine for now. "We'll go with this plan then, but there is something you all have to remember!" It didn't sound like a request, it was more like an order he wanted everyone to follow. Knowing this, the whole room quietened down to listen to him closely. "Don't sway from your individual role in this mission. We all have one role to play, so on the day, you will all have to go with it."

Killua spent a moment looking around the room, getting a nod of approval from everyone. It was usually Gon who would do something as reckless as ad-libbing a mission, but he knew that this time around, Gon only had one thing to focus one. Killua knew that with the simple reminder of Kite's situation, Gon wouldn't stray from his original task. Knuckle, Shoot, Toshiro and Natsume were a lot more experienced when it came to these kind of things, so Killua had faith in them. Himeko, Meleoron and Ikalgo knew the seriousness of this mission, so he trusted them not to mess up. With that being said, he took a piece of chalk and crossed out the remaining number of days they had left until doomsday. The second to last day was nearly over, and with only one full day remaining, the extermination team had to prepare themselves for the worst. "Does anyone have anymore questions regarding this?"

"Do you think Palm is alright?" Gon questioned in concern, "She still hasn't come back, or contacted us."

"Palm?" Himeko asked, before wondering where that creepy woman was hiding. She wasn't there with them, so she assumed that she might have been with her teacher Knov, but there was a part of her that doubted that possibility. Knov and Morel were busy being on the lookout for anything suspicious, and while Knov had tried to infiltrate the palace a few days back, Morel managed to defeat one of the squadron leaders. She highly doubted that Palm would be her usual self in this situation. The seriousness of the mission had gotten to everyone, and Palm though she was quick tempered and naive, she was still smart enough to read the situation. "What happened to her?"

"Oh yeah, you two don't know about this yet." Knuckle began to tell them the details of Palm's infiltration into the King's palace. "Palm decided to infiltrate the palace by herself while you were gone. Through an inside source, we found out that the secretary of state of East Gorteau was hiring someone to fill a position as his personal assistant. Palm's application went through, and she was allowed to enter the palace as a result, but we still haven't heard back from her."

"Well, Palm wanted to help Knov-san since the day we first met her," Himeko recalled the day she first encountered Palm. Although she was well aware of the dangers that lied in NGL, she didn't want to waste a minute to go in and accompany her teacher. She was a crazy woman, threatening to kill them multiple times if they didn't succeed, but at the end of the day, she had the determination to take matters into her own hands. "She wanted to enter NGL at all costs, pushing us all to do well and defeat Knuckle and Shoot, so she could enter. I can see why you are worried about her, she went in all by herself after all. But Palm was prepared for this moment since the very beginning, so I feel like she would know what to do."

"Exactly!" Killua couldn't help but agree with her point. "Palm would have contacted us by now if she managed to escape. But, we also have to consider the possibility of her getting caught by one of the ants. If caught, she would know to take her own life to prevent our plan from leaking out, or she might have gotten killed by one of them." Hearing that Palm might be in danger, or possibly even dead caused some silence in the room. She was brave enough to enter by herself and try to get more information about the King for the main group, but they couldn't ignore the fact that the mission could have been too much for her to handle alone. Gon especially couldn't help but lower his head in silence, thinking of the possibility that another friend of his might have fallen because of the ants. "That aside, Palm could still be alive and in hiding. She found a way to easily get into the palace, but leaving the palace may not be as easy as entering it. In that case, she could still be waiting for the right change to escape. Either way, if she manages to escape, she would try to get in touch with us as soon as possible."

"We still have two days left to wait for her," Himeko pointed out, "there is still a chance of her contacting us until then."

Somehow, Gon still didn't seem to be satisfied by the honest answers he got. There was no way for them to find out whether Palm was in danger, or whether she was already dead. The thought of having to wait for an answer was terrifying. That was when Shoot decided to interrupt his thoughts, "I can understand your concern for Palm, but if we were to continue talking about this, it makes it seem like we don't have any trust in her. In that way, we aren't just worrying about her, but also disrespecting Palm's resolve."

"Gon has always been like that, he is just showing concern for Palm without the intentions of distrusting her, or disrespecting her resolve." Killua pointed out, "But at the same time, all Gon can do is show concern. His concern is utterly useless!"

Seeing how harsh Killua's words were, Knuckle was the first one to interrupt him. "Hey!" He exclaimed, clearly annoyed by Killua's indifferent tone. In his point of view, Gon was just worrying over his friend, just like anyone would do. He expected Killua to show at least some compassion. "Aren't you being hard on him? You just came back, there is no need for you to show this much attitude, you brat!"

Nonetheless, Killua remained relatively calm compared to Knuckle, who was closed to losing his temper. He continued to propose another theory of what might have happened to her, "If we assume that Palm was captured alive, we might as well consider that our plan was leaked out."

"In other words, we'd be blindly heading towards our own doom, like moths drawn to a flame." Shoot concluded, understanding Killua's point. "The Royal Guards will just anticipate our arrival, and take us out before we even have a chance to react."

"That's right, but right now it's important for us to have some faith in her." Killua's tone softened as he reassured Gon, and told him to believe in her. "We have to trust her skills instead of just worrying about her so much. There is no harm in having some concern for her, but at the same time, we have to trust her, too."

"That's a fair point!" Meleoron admitted, yet he was under the impression that Gon might have been hinting to something else. "But Gon might be trying to say that we still have time to change our plan, if our worst case scenario did occur that is. If Palm did get captured alive, and if the whole palace is aware of our plan, we still have more than enough time to come up with a backup plan."

Killua understood the need for everyone to back up the innocent Gon, but at the same time, he knew that none of them except for Himeko were able to read Gon's mind as well as he did. In fact, the only reason Himeko was this quiet was because she was agreeing with him, and let him do all the talking instead of getting involved. Natsume and Toshiro decided to keep silent too, after figuring out that Himeko wasn't arguing back because she agreed with Killua's points. "We are talking about Gon here," Killua tried to remind everyone, "First he'll say that he wants to save Palm, then when asked for a plan, he wouldn't know what to say next. If you don't believe me, then why don't you try asking him for a plan instead?" Knuckle and Shoot who were extremely supportive of Gon turned to him, waiting for a response, hoping he would have prepared an argument against Killua. However, seeing his dumbfounded expression, the two understood that Gon did not have a clue on what they could do about Palm's situation. "It's only natural to worry after not having heard back from her for so long, but at the same time, we have to focus on our mission. Once we infiltrate the palace, you can't afford to think about her at all. One distraction could mean game over for us."

Gon knew where Killua was coming from. The turnout of the mission didn't just affect their lives, but also the lives of the civilians who were going to be part of the selection process. Killua was only thinking about the bigger picture, and in this case, he couldn't afford to think selfishly. One little slip during the mission could mess up everything just like Killua said. He guiltily looked over at Himeko, hoping she would have a plan on his behalf. "Don't look at me like that, Gon. Killua has a point, and I doubt I could think of a counter argument." Gon immediately regretted his decision to get input from her. Both his friends were transmuters, and when it came down to these kind of things that required logic, they often agreed with one another. He began to sulk, and all Himeko could do was watch him frown in disappointment. The Gon she knew was hardly ever like this, if Killua said no, he would never give in so easily. To see him like this saddened her, especially since she had a soft spot for him out of all her friends. "But, Gon does have a fair point! Think about it guys, we still have two whole days to hear back from Palm, so let's try to wait patiently for a response from her. But then again, there is still more than enough time to think of a back up plan just in case. We are already considering all the things that could possibly affect our plan." Although both Himeko and Killua were transmuters and thought alike, Gon also knew that the pair would eventually give in and go with what he thought. Gon would start off by blurting out an outrageous idea, Killua would say it was out of the question, backing his response up with logical reasoning. Himeko would then agree with Killua's logic, but at the same time, she would want to go with Gon's idea and try to convince Killua to do so.

"Do you have a solid plan on how we could rescue Palm then?" Killua asked in response, knowing her answer all too well. There was nothing wrong with them wanting to save Palm, it was something everyone else wanted as well. But at the same time, he wanted the pair to go and think about this situation more rationally. He could understand why Gon thought that way, after all, he always did try to defy logic and do things his way. However, he found that Himeko was too easily swayed by Gon, although she understood the fact that there was no point in worrying about something if you couldn't find a way to solve it.

As expected, all she could do was shake her head in response. "No, I don't."

"We can't do anything without a plan, this mission is dangerous enough as it is already." Seeing where he was coming from, the others remained silent as Killua tried to express his point. Although Killua was one of the calmest out of the team, they could clearly see that he just wanted everything to work out as they had planned out. Relying on their vague plan and expecting it to work out smoothly was already a stretch, and he was probably one of the only people who have prepared for the worst to come. He didn't want to abandon Palm either, but at the same time, their simplistic plan had too many holes already.

"Calm down, you two!" Natsume tried to create some peace between the two. "We won't get anywhere if we keep fighting like this all the time. Two days is plenty, we still have time to try and work things out, as long as we stay calm and collected."

Killua backed off and took a quick breather to calm down, while Natsume tried to keep Himeko calm. "I'm sorry, Killua," she was the first one to apologise, "But I still think this could work out. Morel-san, Knov-san, Knuckle, Shoot, Toshi, Natsu, Meleoron, Gon, you, me, we all have a role to play in this already, but you are forgetting that we still have one more person left. We still have Ikalgo with us, and he knows the palace inside out. I know that's not the solid plan you are after, but it's a start."

He turned to the little Chimera ant, to see that he was willing to help and go along with Himeko's suggestion. "I came along with you because I wanted to help you," Ikalgo reminded him. "If you want me to rescue a friend of yours, I'd be happy to help."

After she gave her suggestion, Killua gave it some thought. No one seemed to object with the plan, and Ikalgo was more than happy to assist them on the mission. Ikalgo knew the layout of the palace, which was a huge bonus for them already, so he could get around alone without any assistance. If the Royal Guards and King were distracted, Ikalgo would only have the weaker ants to worry about. "Come on Killua, we have time to come up with a plan if Palm doesn't make it back in time," Himeko repeated again, knowing Killua had already caught the bait. "If we entrust Ikalgo with the mission to find Palm, the rest of us won't have to worry about her during the mission. We won't get distracted worrying about Palm's wellbeing."

Her last statement was what caught everyone's attention the most, particularly Killua's. Although Gon was already set on rescuing Kite, there was no guarantee that the missing Palm could divert his attention from his original objective to fight Neferpitou. When she said '_We won't get distracted' _she obviously hinted that it was mainly aimed at Gon. It was a foul move, and she knew how worried Killua was about Gon's tendencies to stop following a plan at the most inappropriate moments, hence this was the perfect way to get him to cooperate. He finally found himself giving in to her request, "Fine, we shall do what Gon wants." Gon's eyes immediately lit up, and after this, the others were somewhat relieved to have one of their worries lifted off their minds. "Does anyone know where Palm would be?"

"The only piece of information we have is that she was hired to be the personal assistant of the secretary of state," Toshiro answered, remembering the piece of information Colt and Knov have given them after Palm left. "She must be somewhere inside the palace, but we don't know where."

"But isn't he just an ordinary human?" Himeko questioned. "Seeing how he was a long running political figure for East Gorteau, I highly doubt he has the ability to use _Nen_, and I don't he'd be strong enough to stand against an ant officer alone. I also doubt that many ants would be by his side, considering the fact that he is just an ordinary human being."

"If we are talking about Secretary Bizeff, he'd be most likely to be underground. The Royal Guards and King don't pay much attention to him, neither do they pay much attention to what happens below the palace," Meleoron explained, "Palm might be hidden underground."

"Is there a way to get underground?" Gon asked, hoping that this plan might end up working out in his favour.

"Near the main staircase, there is an elevator that could lead you down to Bizeff's quarter." Meleoron's responses made it seem possible to save Palm, and Gon hoped that this was enough to convince Killua to let Ikalgo go and rescue Palm, while the rest of the palace is caught up in the commotion caused by the extermination team.

Although the plan wasn't good enough to be followed, it was starting to head in the right direction. Gon was obviously satisfied knowing that Palm could be rescued, but Killua felt the need to point out how vague their rescue plan was. "Fine, we'll go with this. But keep in mind that this plan still requires some thought."

Putting that aside, the extermination team continued to go over their main plan for now. With the King watching over the selection process from his third floor throne room, they could also assume that the four Royal Guards would be in the throne room along with him, most likely watching over him to ensure his safety throughout the event. Therefore they somehow had to get up from the first floor, to the throne room and separate all the Royal Guards from the King, so that Chairman Netero could then fight against the King. Shoot also mentioned the fact that Netero was going to enter via a different route, as he had found a way to enter the throne room without being detected by Neferpitou's _En_. Their talk continued as they were coming up with ways to prepare for the upcoming battle. While it was advisable to try and stay in shape until the day, it was important for them not to strain their bodies during training. Meleoron's main objective over the next two days was to improve his ability as much as he could by practicing how long he could hold his breath. Ikalgo had to prepare himself, too, having to come up with a rock solid plan to find and rescue Palm, as well as finding a way to avoid any Chimera ants who were still on the King's side. As the day ended, Killua used a piece rock to cross out the number of days they still had left until the selection day on the brick wall.

The next day went by with everyone discussing and forming strategies to lure out the Royal Guards and planning on how to fight them. For most of them, distracting them was good enough while Netero takes care of the King, but Gon was set on finding a way to cure Kite. What bothered everyone the most was how little they knew about their abilities in the first place. After asking Meleoron, Ikalgo and even Colt, they were only able to get an insight on Neferpitou's abilities, while the other three remained a mystery. Colt also mentioned that Neferpitou wasn't the only guard with the ability to control their enemy. According to him, the fourth guard Apednoiraud, or simply just called Noiraud, also showed abilities to be able to control humans, concluding that he was most likely a manipulator. Each group managed to come up with at least two methods to fight their assigned opponent. Also, seeing how there was still no reply from Palm either, Killua and Ikalgo began to come up with a plan for her rescue as well.

That night, with only one more day remaining, and with everyone knowing the infiltration plan off by heart, the team decided to head towards the capital, Peijing, to spend the last day over there. Morel was already in Peijing, trying to garner the attention of the Royal Guards towards the capital city. Knuckle explained that he spent the past few days using his ability to send forth some smoke puppets, and as expected, Neferpitou had already taken notice of them. Knowing how alert the guards would be during this time, Morel was using the puppets as distractions, hoping that the Chimera ants inside the palace would get the impression that there was only one person to worry about for the time being. Morel would continue doing his job by distracting the insiders of the palace, while the rest of the extermination team just had to split up and hide in the city until the final day. Doing so, the guards would anticipate assassins to be hidden amongst the crowd during the selection, making their attention focus more outside the palace, rather than inside.

Knuckle and Shoot were the first ones to split from the main team, heading towards the west, while Natsume and Toshiro headed towards the east not too soon after. Gon, Killua, Ikalgo, Meleoron and Himeko decided to form the third group and headed a little further into the woods to hide in a little abandoned hut they managed to find. During their journey though, though all five of them remained relatively calm, only Killua was thinking of the _'what if's'._

_"Something feels off." _He couldn't help but be in deep thoughts, as he walked closely behind the other four. What worried him the most wasn't fighting the ants, since that was more or less inevitable. Rather than that, he was more worried that something unexpected may happen, which could lead to everyone else being thrown off guard. He had repeated time and time again that if something unexpected does happen, there was nothing much they could do other than continue following their original plan. But deep inside, he had a gut feeling that something unexpected will happen. He was surprisingly calm compared to the rest, mainly because this wasn't the first time he infiltrated a building to assassinate someone. Maybe it was his past experience that made his instincts warn him ahead of time. _"This sounds way too easy, I doubt it's going to work as we planned." _Once they found a safe place to stay for the night, Killua decided to drop those thoughts for now. As everyone began to settle down, he too decided to fall asleep and continue in the morning.

A couple of hours later, the sun began to rise. Meleoron woke up first, and decided to head out after leaving a note for the others. Not too long after he left, Killua also found himself waking up and checking the time. It was five o'clock in the morning, and four hours was a good amount of rest for him. He looked to his right to see Gon who was still asleep, and next to Gon, Himeko was still sleeping, too. After spotting Ikalgo sleeping in one of the corners, he proceeded to look around for the other Chimera ant, but he couldn't find him. Eventually he found the note from him, informing him that he went on ahead to meet up with Knuckle and Shoot. All Killua could do now was wait for everyone else to wake up, but since they all needed their rest before the big day, he let them have a chance to catch up on their sleep.

Killua started the day by doing a few basic warm up exercises while waiting for the others to wake up. While doing so, he continued the thoughts from last night. Warning Gon once or twice wasn't going to do much, so he wanted everyone to wake up first in order to fully inform them on what to do during unforeseen circumstances. As Killua was deep in thoughts, Gon also managed to slowly open his eyes. After looking around the room, he noticed that only Killua was awake and already doing some push-ups to start his day, and he also managed to notice that Meleoron wasn't there with them anymore. At some point, Killua noticed Gon's, so he decided to stop for the time being. "Good morning, Gon."

"Good morning," Gon yawned in response, before stretching his upper body in order to fully wake up. "What time is it?"

"It's ten past five, so it's still quite early in the morning," he informed him. "Let's let the other two sleep for a little longer, okay?" Once again, Gon looked at Himeko who was still in a deep slumber, before moving on to Ikalgo who looked like he needed a little more rest, too. He then nodded in response to Killua's question, agreeing that the two should get a little more well deserved rest before their mission at midnight. After taking off his signature green jacket, the first thing he did was to use it to cover the sleeping Himeko, hoping it would keep her warm during that chilly morning. Killua watched his every move, surprised at how effortless his gestures were. They seemed like second nature to him. _"Damn, Gon's a natural when it comes to girls..."_

"I'm going to out to brush my teeth," he informed Killua, before gathering his green toothbrush, a little tube of toothpaste and a bottle of water and heading out to brush his teeth. Killua watched him exit the hut, and with nothing better to do, he continued with some sit-ups. A couple of minutes later, Gon returned and placed the toothbrush, toothpaste and water bottle back into the bag. He further rummaged through the beige travel bag until he found a couple of breakfast bars lying around, picking out one for himself, and one for Killua. "Did Meleoron leave?" He asked, as he joined Killua and handed him the blueberry flavoured breakfast bar. He then opened his own and began to eat.

"He left early to meet up with Knuckle and Shoot," Killua explained, before he opened his own breakfast bar. "We'll go and join up with them in one or two hours. Until then, we should try and take it easy and try to go over the plan for tonight."

"Yeah!" He agreed, before scrunching the wrapping paper into a ball. He chewed on the remaining piece and swallowed, and then he went back to the bag to find more. "Want another one, Killua?"

"Aren't too many of these actually bad for you?"

"I don't know, this is all we brought along since it was the easiest to carry." Following Killua's request, Gon continued to search through the bag, wanting to find something edible other than these small breakfast bars. "Well, we have water bottles, too!"

Killua just sighed, "Pass me one!" Gon then picked out two water bottles, throwing one to Killua, which he managed to catch, and then closing the bag again before returning to his original seat. The two boys continued to have a little chit-chat after Gon curiously decided to ask why breakfast bars were actually bad for your health, unlike what the commercials always made him believe. To this, Killua simply explained that the high added sugar content made them less healthier than people might initially assume, adding that the sugar in these was primarily what_ 'keeps people going throughout the day'_. Gon continued to listen to Killua's detailed explanation, amazed by how much he actually knew about something so irrelevant.

"Wow, you always seem to know about the randomest and most irrelevant things, Killua!" Although Gon sounded genuinely fascinated, Killua couldn't help but feel somewhat offended by his backhanded compliment. "Don't worry, it's not just you! I've noticed that Kou does the same thing as well sometimes!"

"That comparison doesn't exactly make me feel any better!" Killua pointed out, before something else managed to catch his attention. He looked over Gon's shoulder after seeing something move, "Speak of the devil, she's awake!"

Gon followed Killua's gaze, and turned around to see the young girl wide awake, staring right back at him in awe. Her eyes widened as she saw Gon smiling back at her, and after she set the jacket covering her aside, she crawled her way to Gon, before proceeding to pull on his cheeks. After verifying that he was indeed the real thing, she began to pinch her own cheeks, and then finally let out a loud sigh in relief. Gon and Killua stared at her, wondering what she was doing, before looking at each other hoping the other would have an idea on why she was behaving so strangely. "Sorry, I just had a really bad dream. I just fell down all of the sudden and couldn't get up anymore. I was lying on the ground, desperately trying to get back up, but I just couldn't."

Despite her distressed voice, the visual image of her falling down and not being able to get back up on her feet managed to make Killua be in stitches. Unlike him, Gon tried his best holding his laughter in although the image was replaying in his head over, and over again. "Killua, she had a nightmare," he began to yell at him. "Be more considerate!"

"You're no better!" Killua pointed out, trying to form coherent words during his laughing fit. "You're so close to laughing, just look at your face! Besides, it's just too hilarious when you try and imagine it."

Surprisingly, Himeko also found herself giggling after listening to their conversation. "I guess it is a little funny when you think about it that way," she chuckled as she finally managed to calm down. "It was just a dream, I'm probably getting a little anxious with the mission being tonight." After suddenly feeling a burning sensation on her left wrist, Himeko turned her attention to see what was wrong. Noticing how her laughter stopped, Gon and Killua decided to check what was wrong with her wrist as well. There was a bracelet the pair had never noticed before, but since they never noticed these kind of things, it didn't bother them that much. What surprised them the most was the burn mark around her wrist.

"Kou, what's wrong?" Gon started to panic as soon as he noticed it. He immediately grabbed her hand to take a closer look at it, "How did you manage to burn yourself? You didn't have this yesterday?"

"The bracelet," she muttered quietly in response. "It's hot!"

Gon proceeded to touch the bracelet in order to confirm her statement, and for some reason it was burning. "She's right, it is hot!" he stated, before trying to find a way to take the bracelet off. Not being able to find a way to open it normally, he started to pull much harder, hoping he could force it off her wrist instead. However, no matter how much he tried, he couldn't take it off.

"Move up, Gon!" Seeing how Gon couldn't do much, Killua moved closer to try and pull the piece of jewellery off. He started off the same way Gon did, looking for a way to open it without damaging it. However, there was no opening to be found, and just like Gon, Killua too resorted to use force to pull it off. First, he tried tugging on the silver chain, but since that wasn't working, he chose to try pulling on both of the charms instead. But once he attempted to use _Ren_ to break it off, he noticed something. "It nullified my _Nen_!" He informed the other two, "This thing cancelled out my _Nen_. You created this with your own _Nen_, didn't you?"

"I made this over the last two months," she confessed, her head hanging low. She never would have thought she'd regret the decision of making a strong weapon, like she did right now.

"You made that over just two months?" Gon questioned, before spending a moment staring at it again. "That's amazing! You must have worked really hard on it."

Compared to Gon, Killua wasn't as impressed. Rather than impressed, he was a little more suspicious that she was hiding something from them. "Considering that you're a natural transmuter, you must have worked exceptionally hard to conjure something with so much detail." He pointed out, in a sarcastic manner. "Making something like this in two months, wow, you are great!"

"But if you made it yourself, why can't you just take it off?"

"That's the point, there is no way of pulling it off, even with the help of _Nen_." She began to explain. "It will only break off when it wants to break off, and until then, it will still to my wrist like this. That was one of the conditions I agreed on."

After hearing her explain the reason why they couldn't get the bracelet off her wrist, Killua felt stupid for even putting in so much effort and trying. The first thing he did was hit her on the head for wasting his time, "You idiot, you could have told us beforehand! We sat here for a good two minutes trying to tear that piece of junk apart."

"I just wanted to see whether you two barbarians are able to pull it apart!" She yelled back in response, carefully caressing the bump on her head.

"If that bracelet doesn't come off in the next few years, and your wrist continues to grow bigger, it's going to start hurting." He started to warn her, considering how the piece of jewellery was already starting to affect her despite being a pretty new ability of hers. "It's already hurting you, so try to get rid of it, or at least find a way to get if off your wrist."

"That was part of the deal, too. I don't know when it will fall off, it can fall off during a fight, it can fall of when I'm asleep, it can even stick with me until I grow old. I agreed that I won't have control over it, so even if it starts to restrict my wrist growth, I'd just have to bear with the pain."

While Killua and Himeko were discussing any future consequences she might have if the bracelet doesn't come off before then, Gon was still caught up on one of her earlier statements. He decided to interrupt his friends' debate and ask her up front. "Kou, you mentioned something about agreeing on a certain condition. I remember Kurapika got his ability like that too, so perhaps, did you use the same technique as him to achieve your ability?" After Gon brought up the subject, Killua couldn't help but connect the dots. It nicely tied in with his observations on how secretive Himeko was in the past two months in terms of training. Seeing how quiet she had gotten after that question was asked, the two boys assumed their hunch was correct. They were waiting for her to respond, but all she could do was try and figure out a way to answer.

"Yes, I used _Vows and Limitations_ after gathering as much information on it as possible," she ended up confessing, knowing that Gon wouldn't drop the topic anytime soon. She knew exactly what they thought of the technique, considering how much Kurapika had warned them not to use it. But somehow, there was that need for her to convince them that she was doing the right thing all along. She didn't know whether she just didn't want to be wrong, or whether she wanted the two to stop worrying about her, she just wanted everyone to stop talking about it. "I was very precise with the conditions, so I didn't do anything stupid with it either. You might think I made the wrong choice, and it's up to you two to think that way, but please understand that after I created this, I became a lot more confident in my abilities. Feel free to criticise me when I'm not around you two, but when I'm here, at least pretend to respect my decision, and give me the impression that I did the right thing."

Although she appreciated the immense confidence boost and strength that came with her conjured weapon, part of her couldn't help but feel unsatisfied. She was lying to herself when she said she wouldn't do anything stupid, and though she carefully planned out every single condition, she had to remember that this was still a give and take situation. Unlike Kurapika, she was too afraid to blindly put her whole life on the line in return for power, but there was something she had to give in return. She remembered how innocent it all seemed when she first started off with her first two conditions, _'I can only use each charm once a day'_ and _'Once broken, the charm can't be repaired'_. But slowly, she had to restrict herself further in order to gain more.

The condition _'Nothing, not even Nen can break the bracelet or charms' _then lead up to the limitation _'Nothing can break the bracelet, not even me. The bracelet will break off whenever it wants to, and I'd have to bear it's weight until then'_. The condition _'Give me strength to defeat opponents much stronger than me'_ lead up to the limitation_ 'Give me strength to defeat stronger opponents, and in return, I'll suffer a fraction of the same pain over the course of a set amount of days'_. At the start, she thought that there was nothing wrong, but the seriousness of the technique only hit her once it was too late to back out. The more she gave up in return for power, the more power she ended up receiving. Despite the fact that she did manage to grow stronger over just two months, there was a part of her that started to regret it. If she ever came back alive from the palace, she didn't have to use the bracelet anymore unless it was required, but that won't change the fact that it would stick with her until it fell of by itself.

Not surprisingly, Gon was the first person to respond to her. "Baka* Kou!" He exclaimed loudly, trying to use it as a way to vent all his frustration on her. "We are your friends, if you do something stupid, we aren't going to sit her and pretend to go along with it. You can tell us to criticise us when you're not around, but I'll criticise you right here in front of you. I don't respect your decision at all, and I'm not going to give you the impression that you did the right thing because you clearly didn't! There is a reason why Wing-san and Kurapika told us to stay away from that technique, and you didn't listen at all. I thought you were smarter than me, but not even I would have done something so dumb! You're a moron!"

With Gon having done most the talking and shouting, there wasn't much for Killua to add at this point. He sighed in frustration, "You idiot!" He then stood up and grabbed his half-full water bottle. "Get up, idiot, we are stepping outside for a minute. Gon, try and find a piece of cloth in the bag you brought along." Gon immediately walked towards the bag he placed in one corner, before scavenging through it to find the cloth he saw not too long ago when looking around for a bottle of water. Killua walked towards the door, and opened it, before telling Himeko to follow him out. "Oi, idiot! I told you to follow me!"

Himeko obediently stood up and made her way out. The morning breeze was still a little chilly, yet somehow refreshing after having spent the past couple of weeks in a city. She listened to him when he told her to stand to one side and hold out her arm, and she watched him open the water bottle. Killua took a quick moment to analyse how bad the burn around her wrist looked, and although it did look painful at first, he figured that it would heal in a couple of days. At first, it did sound like a thoughtless condition to give to yourself, but after thinking about it, Himeko was able to endure more pain than the average person, and her healing rate was a lot faster, too. He then began to pour the cool water over the burn, hoping it would soothe the pain. He noticed how relatively quiet she remained throughout the process, trying to bear with the stinging sensation by clenching her fist really tightly. "Does it sting?"

"Yeah, it does burn and sting a little," she admitted, trying her best to force out a smile. "But it's nothing I can't tolerate!" Looking at that half distorted smile, Killua knew she was forcing herself to tell an obvious lie, so he replaced the lid on the now empty water bottle before hitting her on the head with it. "Ouch, what was that for!"

"For being a really bad liar."

"Killua, I found a handkerchief inside the bag!" Gon exclaimed as he joined the two outside the little hut. He handed him the checkered, blue and white handkerchief and watched him tie it around her wrist whilst holding the empty water bottle Killua had given him. Himeko doubted that the handkerchief was unused, but she appreciated their concern, so she kept quiet.

"There! If you do something this stupid again, I'll get Gon to use his _Janken_ on you," Killua warned, before returning back inside the hut. Gon and Himeko watched in return inside, and proceed with whatever he was doing before Himeko woke up and caused all this ruckus.

"Baka Kou, do you want me to get you your toothbrush?"

_"Baka Kou? Is he going to keep calling me that?"_ Himeko began to wonder. "Yeah, I'd appreciate that." She watched Gon go back inside the hut too, and rummage through the bag for a clean toothbrush for her to use. With blue and green being used already, pink was the only colour left, so he picked that up along with the travel toothpaste tube and returned. "Wasn't there a blue toothbrush?"

"Yeah, but Killua used that already."

"But I like blue, he could have used the pink one instead," she complained. "Pink suits him more than it suits me."

Their loud voices could be heard by Killua from inside the hut, and after he took offence to Himeko's words, he decided to reply. "I heard that, washboard!"

"Baka Kou, just brush your teeth and come back inside." Gon demanded, before returning inside to do a couple of warm up exercises to start the morning off properly.

_"What's with the baka Kou, is that going to become a thing from now on?"_ she mentally cursed at the two boys who were starting to give her a cold shoulder, before she began to brush her teeth while staring at the trees surrounding the hut they were staying at. Once she was done, she stepped back in and closed the door behind her, only to find Ikalgo awake as well. "Good morning, Tako-kun!"

"Good morning, Himeko." He smiled back at her, before replaying her cheery greeting in his head again and realising what she really said. "Don't call me Tako-kun!"

"By the way, you can just call me Kou like everyone else," she pointed out after completely ignoring his yelling. "It feels a little weird when everyone calls me Kou, but one person calls me Himeko."

Somehow, Ikalgo couldn't help but feel content after Himeko allowed him to call her by the nickname he had only heard her closest friends use. "Okay, I'll call you Kou from now on!"

"Great, now if we could all settle down for a while, we could go over the plan for tonight again." Killua interrupted the two. "There is also something I'd like to discuss with you all, especially knowing how reckless two of you are." Hearing this, Himeko found herself a space to sit down after getting herself a breakfast bar to temporarily satisfy her hunger. Once everyone was listening, Killua began to explain their specific route through the palace. Starting on the first floor by the main staircase, the Pitou team will have make their way upstairs to the second floor. Ikalgo will head northeast towards the elevator that would lead him down to the bottom floor, where he would find Palm. Once he found her, he ordered Ikalgo to escape with Palm, even if everyone else was still in the middle of their fight. While Ikalgo splits up for the elevator, Himeko, Gon and Killua would then take the next set of stairs that would lead them to the third floor, and the throne room would be on that floor. He repeated that Neferpitou was the ant they would fight, and that they shouldn't get involved in any other unnecessary battles as it would distract them from their main motive. Now that he had ran through the plan for the nth time, he wanted to inform the rest of all the _if's_.

"You really are hung up on that, aren't you?" Gon questioned, noticing how many times he had brought that subject up.

Ikalgo decided to add another question for him to answer, seeing how this was the perfect opportunity. "How likely is it for the plan to not go accordingly?"

"Looking at our situation, the possibility is quite low, but not impossible." He informed them, before continuing to explain his theory. "With the selection being in process, and Morel's distractions being in place, the guards would expect someone to come after the King. All the guards would be gathered up in the throne room, but there could be a small chance that they don't. However, the unexpected does seem to happen pretty often."

"Aren't you contradicting yourself?"

"Let me put it this way. We spend weeks researching our enemy extensively, but usually when you wait for someone at a certain place, and at a certain time, they often don't end up being there."

"That does seem to happen quite a lot," Himeko commented after finding some truth in his point. "But rather than calling that a logical explanation, I would just think of it as bad luck."

"No, I've noticed it quite a lot back during my old job. I would spend hours planning on how I would go about infiltrating a building and finishing my job, but on numerous occasions, something unexpected would happen, and I'd have to wait a little longer for the perfect chance to strike." Killua decided to take a little break just there and stop talking. His face darkened, "In our case, there is no second time. There is no option to wait, and there is no option to turn back once we moved in. If we hesitate for just a little, we could end up dead, so let's use the opportunity to think of ways to handle different situations. We all know what Pitou's _En_ feels like, so even if the guards aren't in the throne room, we can just follow her vicious aura to where it's the densest since her aura is large enough to cover the whole palace and surrounding courtyard. But now that raises the question of what we'll do if we can't sense Pitou's _En_ at all. She could either not be inside the palace at all, or she could not be using _En_."

Ikalgo raised his hand to ask another question, "Could they be inside the palace and not use _En_ to guard the King?"

"That's what happened to Knov-san the other day when he infiltrated," Gon informed him, much to his surprise.

"Although he initially thought it was Pitou's aura, according to Colt it was Pouf's," Killua continued, "The Royal Guards never leave the King's side, including Pitou, but since she stopped using her's, Knov-san was able to infiltrate with ease that day. But with Pouf there, it meant the King was still in the throne room, so the other guards must have been there, too, which leads us to wonder why Pitou stopped using both her puppets and _En_ that day."

"It might have to do with her _Nen_ ability," Himeko proposed, and Killua agreed on that thought, suspecting that it must have something to do with her ability.

"How about we phone Colt and ask him?" Gon suggested, before handing Killua his phone. Following his suggestion, Killua phoned Colt who was seemingly in a large room, with toys scattered all over the place, watching a little, magenta haired child. After explaining this scenario to him, Colt offered a possible reason for Neferpitou to stop using her _En, _explaining that it might have something to do with her healing ability. He recalled how she used the same healing ability on Kite, and during that time, she wasn't able to use her puppets or _En_. After a brief discussion, Killua thanked him for the information, before cutting the call and turning to the other three who were all waiting for answers.

"According to Colt, Pitou must have used her ability to heal someone during that time," he informed them, "But that brings us to the question of who he would have healed. The Royal Guards wouldn't risk their King getting injured while trying to heal someone of less importance, especially since they've tightened security now. It couldn't have been an ant soldier, or even a fellow Royal Guard, so it must have been the King."

"But who would manage to hurt the King?" Gon questioned.

"He's right!" Himeko raised the same question as him. "What kind of monster would be able to injure a monster?"

"That's what I don't understand!" Killua exclaimed in frustration. "It couldn't have been an internal dispute, the ants and Royal Guards wouldn't dare raise a hand against the King. With the Royal Guards protecting the King, there would be no way an outsider could have attacked." Along with the rest, Killua began to think in circles, ending up at the start after thinking for a while. There weren't that many possibilities to choose from, and nearly all possible reasons seemed impossible.

As Himeko continued to think, she seemed to have come up with a ridiculous, but logic explanation. "Guys, this might sound stupid, but listen up," she started off, "What if the King did it to himself. If none of the ants did it, and there was no outsider being involved, the King must have injured himself. That's the only logical explanation."

Ikalgo didn't understand the point she was trying to make, neither could he even see a monster like the King injure himself. "Why in the world would he do that?"

"I told you before, it's a stupid, yet logical explanation. It also makes the most sense as none of the other ants would be able to lay a hand on him," she pointed out, before trying to explain her point in a much more simplistic way. "I'm not sure if my theory is correct, but think of it like this. What do most spoilt children say to their parents if they don't get what they want?_ 'If you don't buy me this, I will do this' _or _'if you don't let me do this, I won't listen to you', _they'd say stuff like that. Now let's assign the roles of the parents and child to the Royal Guards and the King respectively. The Royal Guards will listen to everything the King says, but if it's an outrageous request, they may try and talk him out of it to keep him safe. It could have been a form of emotional blackmail, as we all know how overly protective the Royal Guards are when it comes to the King."

"Now that you put it that way, it does start to make some sense. I was thinking that it might also involve a third party, but that would just lead us to further questions." Killua admitted, giving it some more thought. However, after he couldn't think of any other reason to why the King might have harmed himself, he decided to go with her reasoning for the time being. "We'll go by your logic for now until we get more information on this matter. Either way, it would be best for us to inform Morel-san and the others."

"Right!" Gon nodded, before taking out his phone and calling Morel in order to inform him of the theory they managed to come up with.

Only eighteen hours remained until the selections.

* * *

*Baka Kou just sounded and flowed better than stupid Kou.

**A/n- **Sorry for the somewhat long absence. My exams started a while ago, and I still have a few left. But since the months of revising in agony have past, I should be able to update more regularly (and I'm nearly done re-editing the Yorkshin arc too!).

Also, I did forget a lot of what happened during the infiltration part of this arc, so I have to binge through episodes to refresh my memory. Re-watching the episodes made me realise how all over the place most of the scenes were, as in they switched from one fight to another, and considering that there were around 3/4 fights happening simultaneously, it's going to be quite difficult to put into words. I had to plan a timeline for Kou since she was an addition to this arc, and it is much harder than I thought. I might not go into too much detail about the others, mainly because most of you would remember it if you have watched the series (which I'm assuming most of you did). But I will try and throw in what the other characters are doing here and there, just so you can keep up with the timings and stuff. (Unless someone wants me to actually spend more time on the other characters excluding Kou, Toshiro and Natsume during their fights with the ants.) I don't know, I'll have to work things out until then!

**Review Corner: **

**AJPJweallluvJJ: **Hahahahaha xD you killed me with the Taylor Lautner abs comment! I always thought Killua's body looked like it belonged to a muscle builder on steroids. Either that, or Togashi has been lying to us about his real age.

And anything Kou said in the last chapter shouldn't really be taken seriously, lol. But if you consider the amount of work she does, she would have a fit body. The superhuman drug actually doesn't allow their muscles to increase much in size, which is why she is quite short and flat chested. To put it into perspective, the drug causes their bodies to burn fat and carbs quicker, and at some point muscle mass will begin to decrease if they don't get enough protein. If we take Toshiro as an example, he is a natural enhancer just like Gon, and he is also the same age as Leorio. At that age, with the years of training he did at the dojo, you would expect him to be muscular, but I've never described him as muscular and use the word 'slim' instead. I guess you would consider their bodies to be more lean as opposed to bulky (if that makes sense). Sorry for the longwinded answer xD

**havanatitania:** Fluff between the two is rare, but I guess you can never expect when I decide to include some! And sorry for the late update, I'll try to update more frequently from now on ^^

**neonkoi:** Haha, I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter. I usually like adding references in chapters, but I hardly have the chance to do that as it may seem out of place in a lot of chapters. Thank you for leaving a review ^^

**Queechi:** If it's my story we are talking about here, you don't even need laughing gas *insert smug emoji* *insert emoji with sunglasses*

**SilverDewDrop:** 32 hours?! I can't even sit still in a plane for 6 hours, how can you survive for that long? I could last 12 hours max, but then I would search the plane for a parachute and jump out. And well, the previous chapter was more of an April fools chapter, so it was supposed to be silly, but still part of the story. But if you wish, we can just assume that Kou is a Disney fanatic and listens to Adele while crying over Kurapika xD

And I wouldn't say Kou was immune to the IV drops she received. I'm not a medical professional, so anyone could correct me if I'm wrong, since I just assumed this is how it works. One cause of hypothermia is sudden exhaustion, so your body temperature drops rapidly because the body doesn't have enough energy to be converted into heat (this is true according to google). The IV drips would probably just contain different nutrients that would help the body to start producing energy by itself again, but in Kou's case, because her body needs a lot more energy than the average person (which is because of the drug like you pointed out), they needed to use tons of IV drops to get her to function. (This I didn't google, but just assumed based on my limited scientific knowledge.) They often have other stuff in it too which I don't know of, but there are medications that can cause hallucination, and considering that she received a lot of IVs of their highest strength IV drops, she experienced. Moral of the story, don't do drugs kids! So the answer to your question, she wasn't 'immune' to them, she just needed a lot more than the average person. But if we are talking about sedatives, again she wouldn't be immune to them like Killua for example, but she would have a very high tolerance to it. In other words, it would take effect very very slowly, and you need a lot for it to take effect. P.s - sorry for the science lesson!

**Guest (from chapter 9):** Are you referring to the ending of the chapter, my writing style, or just me in general? If it's all 3, then I fully agree xD

**Melissa the kawaii yandere:** I feel like everyone has an inside joke when it comes to Adele's Hello, or are my friends and I just really immature? xD It's good to know that there are people that find me funny, because there are times where I'm the only person laughing at my own jokes, lol.

And yep, CCS was part of my childhood and SakuraxSyaoron was one of my first ships, before I even knew what the word ship meant. I wouldn't consider Kou's and Killua's relationship to be like theirs, because Kou and Sakura are opposite (I mean Sakura is just too precious). I think Gon would make a better Sakura than Kou tbh. Sakura and Gon have the same cuteness to them. With Kou and Killua, it's more like two Syaorons. Plot twist: Syaoron was actually just a narcissist. Oh, and for your prediction, you'd just have to wait and see ;D

**Arcana The Wolf:** Welcome back ^^ It's alright, take your time reading because I wrote a shit load! Good luck, and if you're reading this then well done, you've made it! :D

**Eyuki (from chapter 13): **Thank you so much for leaving a review, I really appreciate your feedback ^^

**Guest/ NielleXD (from chapter 30):** Thanks a lot for the feedback, I really appreciate it ^^ I'm not really good at being romantic, hence I call it a 'slow romance' (lolz). And I actually consider Kou to be more wimpy than badass. She certainly has her moments sometimes, but other than that, she's definitely doesn't like fighting as much as some of the other characters. (I guess that could be considered a good thing, seeing how Hisoka turned out). Thanks again for leaving a review, and I hope you continue to like this fanfic ^^


	59. Countdown

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 59**

_Countdown_

...

"Kou!" Himeko felt something touch her shoulders, before the same hand lightly shook her. They proceeded to call her name again, "Earth to Kou," which eventually pulled her out of her thoughts. Himeko blinked a couple of times, before taking a good look at the empty, white room she was sitting in. Although the large room had familiar people in it, she still couldn't help but feel anxious sitting inside. It was empty, and something about the colour white gave her a feeling of unease. _'Fifteen minutes left' _Morel announced a while ago, moments before she had moved into her thinking phase. There was no clock there for her to check the time. But then again, she didn't want to know either. Morel and Killua were pretty much the only people who kept track of the remaining time, and every time Morel made an announcement, her heart sunk a little. She felt as if this was the countdown to her doom, and maybe that was why the empty white room felt so eery to her. In the worst case scenario, she might die, and her soul might wander through such an endless room for the rest of her eternity.

Everyone was still sitting in the same places as she last remembered, so luckily not much time would have passed. Everyone was still eating some snacks, trying to calm their nerves and having some last minute discussions, whether or not they were related to the actual infiltration. Killua and Ikalgo were still arguing about something idiotic Himeko didn't bother keeping track of. Apparently it was something about Killua's theory behind the king's self-injury. It didn't sound like anything important, so she didn't let their words reach her ears. She didn't see Knov before zoning out, so he must have arrived while she was still in her own world. Being in charge of observations, Knov kept a close eye on the troops that marched towards the palace. Apparently he saw Shaiapouf using his wings to hypnotise the citizens, whilst they were still standing outside the palace in an orderly fashion. Although it was being said to Morel, Knuckle who was listening to their conversation along with Shoot was outraged by this. What a horrible way to die; mindlessly standing in a single file, waiting for your turn to be slaughtered.

Morel on the other hand seemed to have expected something like this to happen. For the past couple of hours, he was still in the city of Peijing with his students Knuckle and Shoot, looking out for anything suspicious from the enemies' side. They weren't able to spot anything abnormal, and could only watch the citizens of the whole country march towards the grim reaper's doorsteps. It was during this time where the others also did some final preparations. Though they had a whole day, it seemed like a mere few hours. Nerve-wrecking wasn't even the right word to describe how most of them felt. They felt nauseous, almost to the point where some wanted to throw up several times, hoping that would lower their built up stress levels. The calmest three among the extermination team were Morel, Gon, Killua and Natsume, and by now, that wasn't much of a surprise to anyone. Morel was the leader of the team, so whatever was to happen, he still had to keep his head on his shoulders. Two of the others had run through mental simulations of the worst case scenarios, figuring out the safest solution for each. The odd man standing in that small group just had Kite on his mind.

Moving all the way down the list, Knov was probably the worst off out of everyone else after seeing Shaiapouf's _En_ first hand. The sudden anxiety caused his jet black hair to turn snow white in a matter of just a week. Knov felt as if he was sitting all alone in a pitch black room for an eternity, until what was left of his courage pulled in out. In the end, he decided to drop out of the mission completely. Once he finally stepped out of that dark room of self-pity, physically only his hair has had a drastic change. But the confidence he had when he first met Gon and the others shattered completely. There was a time when he ridiculed both Killua and Himeko, arrogantly calling them mere children who should have just stayed at home and left this mission to the adults, but now he was too ashamed to even recall that. Gon having the least experience in the group was the most eager to go into battle, whilst Killua who was one of the youngest looked the most composed. Their strength and resolves couldn't help but amaze him. Those two young boys, he learnt a lot from them when the pair should be learning from him, who was a veteran Hunter.

Meleoron spent the last day practicing holding his breath, being able to do so for approximately one minute. It was a drastic improvement, but for him it still wasn't enough. In the palace, he knew he couldn't possibly use his ability to its full potential. He kept telling himself to remain as calm as he could, now and also during their mission, but just thinking about the immense strength of the King and his Royal Guards caused his heart to pound harder. After spending time with Gon and the others, he was beginning to see how strong they really were. He saw potential in them being able to fight the Royal Guards and hold them up. Knuckle, whom he was paired with for their part of the mission impressed him with his _Hatsu_, too. Having been a squadron leader himself, he knew Knuckle was strong enough to defeat someone on the same rank as him. If they were to combine both of their abilities together, their plan had a chance to work out, yet Meleoron became increasingly worried about not being able to do his end of the plan properly. Since Knuckle was paired up with him, he helped him with training. But seeing how strong Knuckle really was, Meleoron felt this immense pressure to become better, so that he wouldn't end up letting everyone down and ruining the plan.

Meanwhile, Natsume and Toshiro tried to figure out ways to use their abilities together. Their _Hatsu's_ alone wouldn't be able to cause much damage against a Royal Guard, but this was much harder than they initially thought. Their techniques were too different, it seemed highly unlikely for the pair to use them together. As an enhancer and a conjurer, they had trouble coming up with a concrete plan. If for instance a transmuter like Killua or Himeko were in their group, they would have had a lot less hassle. Although the two have gone on missions together quite a lot of times before, they only had to use their strengths individually. Increasing their own abilities was the only thought they had all these years, but they never thought it would be necessary for them to combine their techniques.

Anyone who didn't work in a small group spent some time training alone. Killua for example decided to add some finishing touches to his newly developed technique. He also managed to help Ikalgo find a way to get on the elevator undetected, as by now his fellow ants would have become aware of his betrayal. Once Ikalgo had a solid plan, all he could do was wait for any news regarding Palm and her whereabouts. In sheer contrast to Killua, Himeko brushed up on her basics rather than trying to learn something new. Creating a new technique needed time, and she didn't want to risk learning anything new, knowing that _Vows and Limitations_ would eat up a small portion of her energy everyday, just as she agreed in the deal. For her, revisiting _Ten_, _Zetsu_ and _Ren_ were the way to go. Just like her, Gon didn't do anything extraordinary either. Rather than revisiting the _Nen_ basics, he simply tried to stay in shape until night time.

"Kou!" Gon tried to raise his voice as he still hadn't gotten a reply from her. His voice didn't just startle her, but even Ikalgo and Killua who were still arguing stopped to look for a moment before continuing. Himeko turned to see who called her, and beside her was Gon, who seemed to be responsible for interrupting her thought process. He held out a small, yellow package, "Want some?"

She looked somewhat confused to be back in the real world all of the sudden, but it didn't take much time for her to get accustomed to her new environment. "Sure!" She replied, before her hand dived into the yellow pack and fished out a handful of sweets. "Thanks, Gon!" However, as she looked into her hand, all the sweets she had were the same colour. "Gon, why are all the Jelly Babies yellow? What happened to the red ones?"

"We ate them while you were zoning out," he answered, before taking another quick look into the pack. There were only a few more greens left, which he tried to offer to her instead. "What about the green ones?"

"I don't like lemons, and lime is pretty much the same thing! They're just a different colour."

"No they're not the same!" Gon argued back, and for some reason he got quite defensive after hearing what she said. "Lemons and limes are different. Besides, why do you even hate lemons that much?"

"Lemons are meant to be sour," she explained. "Why would you make sweets out of something that is meant to be sour? The logic here is completely flawed!"

Although Himeko argued that the logic behind something sour being turned into something sweet was flawed, Gon thought her reasoning had the bigger hole in it. Maybe it just slipped out of her mouth because she still has her head filled with the mission, or maybe she was just trying to find a logical excuse for not liking something. Either way, he couldn't help but give her a amused look, almost as if he was judging her for her reasoning. A childish explanation like this was quite rare to hear out of her mouth, but that made it all the more hilarious for him. "So that's the big reason? You always skip out on lemonade, lemon pie, lemon candy and any kind of lemon dessert or drink because of that?"

"They taste weird as well, and besides, I didn't drink Tonpa's lemonade during the Hunter exam because I don't like lemonade. Imagine I did like lemonade, I might not have passed the first stage, and we might not have been friends right now and I wouldn't be here sitting next to you this moment," she slipped in another comment, hoping it would help validate her first statement.

"But we became friends before the first phase." Gon clearly remembered the exact moment he became friends with Himeko, or at least when he started to consider her as a friend; which was pretty much as soon as they've introduced themselves. "On the boat, we became friends before Kurapika and Leorio had that big fight, remember?"

"Yeah, about that..." Hearing her say this, Gon became quite curious to what she had to say about their memorable friendship story. "I only considered you an acquaintance back then. Not that I'm trying to offend you on purpose or anything, but I didn't fully trust you guys until the end of the first phase. So, I probably started considering you my friend around that time too."

Himeko told him not to feel offended, but he couldn't help but feel offended anyway considering the fact that she didn't consider him a friend until later on. That was when Gon started to doubt himself; was everyone else like Himeko too, or was Himeko just really stuck up and antisocial back then? He looked over at Killua, who was sitting opposite him and decided to interrupt the explanation of his theory he was telling Ikalgo. "Killua, when did you become my friend?"

Killua stopped talking, and Ikalgo looked over too after hearing such a strange question out of his mouth. "During the Hunter exam when we first met, I guess."

"In that case, when did you become friends with Kou?"

"I would say during our stay in Yorkshin city." Gon was surprised by that answer, and he honestly thought that they would have befriended each other sometime during the Hunter exam. Sure, he acknowledged the fact that they fought a lot, but he argued quite a lot with Killua too. He looked over at Himeko to confirm it.

"Yeah, sometime during the time we helped chase the Phantom Troupe."

"And you were acquaintances before that?" He questioned, to which Himeko happily nodded her head.

"We had a mutual friend, that would be a better way to explain it," Killua added. "By then we were both friends with you, but we never really spoke to each other unless you were there with us. Then one day she just randomly said _'Nice to meet you, I'm Himeko Inoue, but you can just call me Kou. Let's become friends!'_ and I just went along with it."

Hearing this, Gon was somewhat relieved. He wasn't the problem at all, it was Himeko who was the weird one. "So, I'm guessing you're friends with most of the Jelly babies, but you're only acquaintances with yellow and green ones, so you won't eat them."

"Gon, now you're just straight up mocking me! Besides, you guys left the yellow and green ones too because you don't like them. You can't point fingers at someone when you've done it yourself too!"

"I was just saving them for later."

"Yeah, as if!" With that constant back and forth, the two became the second pair out of their little group to start a pointless argument. The other groups were fairly quiet, hoping to have some peace and quiet before the mission.

For a while now, Killua seemed to have caught Shoot's eye, and it wasn't just because of his obnoxiously loud voice. He was keeping an eye on what he considered Killua's strangely calm attitude, trying to figure out whether it was just an act to stop others from worrying about him. At this point, Killua was much calmer than him, and the drastic change in his attitude seemed almost too unreal. Just a month ago, Killua couldn't even think straight while fighting him. Now they were up against a much stronger opponent, yet Killua looked unfazed. The same could be said about Gon. In fact, Shoot noticed that Gon's little circle consisting of Ikalgo, Killua and Himeko were much more relaxed than he initially expected them to be. The strange thing was that all four of them knew exactly how strong a Royal Guard was. Though he could see glimpses of Himeko and Ikalgo's worried expressions now and then, the pair was still a lot more comfortable than he initially expected. The four were snacking and talking, almost as if this were some sort of after party.

Gon and Himeko's argument came to a halt, and now that their share of snacks was almost done, they had to come up with a way to get new snacks. Himeko's eyes immediately darted to her first targets. Natsume and Toshiro were sitting in their own little corner, Toshiro staring into space just like she did, and Natsume eating a packet of crisps by himself. "Over there, get some snacks from them!"

"Why me?" Gon protested. "It was your fault for daydreaming whilst we were eating."

"Why don't you decide with a game of rock, paper, scissors?" Killua suggested, trying to bring some peace between the two. Gon was all in for the idea, as this was a common way for the trio to come to an agreement. However, before Killua could announce the match, Himeko stood up.

"I'll pass!" She said. "I'd rather walk a few meters and steal some snacks than risk playing a round of rock, paper, scissors with Gon. Next thing you know, he subconsciously uses his _Nen_ against me."

"Hey! I wouldn't do that!"

In contrast to Gon's reaction, Killua just added more items to her list. "Great, get us a bottle of soda while you're at it!"

"Some dried seaweed too, if you don't mind." Ikalgo added. Himeko sighed as she made her way towards her two mentors, both a sheer contrast to each other. If anything, Natsume would fit in better with Gon and the others, whilst Toshiro and her could sit and stare into space together. In a way, seeing him in the same state as her gave her a sense of relief. But Toshiro was much stronger than her, so that factor couldn't help but worry her at the same time.

"Yo!" Natsume greeted her as she got closer, noticing that her eyes were on the unopened packets of snacks. He didn't stop her from taking anything, neither did he say any witty remarks, so she assumed it was okay for her to just take whatever she wanted. She knelt down between the two, trying to choose between the limited options. "You seem to be doing just fine, although we don't have long left until the infiltration." There it was, the snide remark she expected from him.

"How can you two even manage to swallow anything?" Toshiro questioned in a monotonous tone. When it came to him, this kind of voice was usually used to hide what he was really feeling. His low voice sounded indifferent, but his expression told them otherwise. Himeko changed the way she was sitting, crossing her legs so she was more comfortable. Now that both Natsume and Toshiro had broken the silence they've been sitting in, she figured they'd end up keeping her there for a while.

"I honestly don't feel that hungry either, just thinking of food makes me-" she couldn't even finish her sentence without gagging, and the two boys moved away thinking she might actually vomit then and there. "See? I feel like I'm about to throw up any moment. If not now, I think I'll throw up during the mission."

Toshiro especially couldn't help but pity her a little. Sure, Natsume was one of her teachers too, but when it came down to things like this, Toshiro was the only relatable person out of all her teachers. She was much younger than both of them, and she didn't have much fighting experience either compared to the two. If you were to compare her to someone like Morel, Knuckle, Shoot, Natsume and even Killua, she only had a tiny faction of experience when it came down to such a risky mission. In a way, Toshiro made himself feel better by comparing the number of years he trained with the number of years Himeko trained. He was in no position to be this anxious when he should be taking care of her. He kept an eye on her, and it looked like she was deep in thoughts again, staring at the floor. It was possible that she was just trying to remind herself of what she had to do once she was inside the palace. Whatever were to happen, Killua reminded her time and time again to stick to the plan, so there was quite a lot of pressure on her. Now that he gave it some thought, they only took her on smaller missions until now, and somehow he started to regret babying her until now. Even this time around he didn't imagine that the mission was going to turn out this way. Although he stopped worrying about himself, he began worrying about his student instead.

Toshiro watched her expression change, as she reached out for a package of crisps lying on the floor. "I think I'll go with BBQ flavour!"

"You were after the food all along?!" He exclaimed in utter surprise, dumbfounded at how relaxed she was despite what she had just said not even a minute ago. She was just about to reach out for the packet of dried seaweed Ikalgo requested, but was stopped abruptly by Toshiro's loud voice. "You just looked like you were about to throw up, but you plan on eating more?"

"You make me sound like a pig, I'm taking some for Gon and the others too." She informed him before scooping up everything she wanted to take back, which was pretty much everything Natsume and Toshiro had. "I might not look like it, but I am really scared. I mean, what do I do if I'm not strong enough? I know I'm not strong enough to do my part of the mission, and if I mess up I'll end up dragging Gon and Killua down with me. I don't want to do that, not when Gon is the most determined out of everyone in this room. If I look stressed then everyone else will start worrying about me, but no one here can afford to think about anyone other than themselves right now."

"If you're that worried, why don't you just back out while you still have the opportunity to?" Natsume suggested. Although he was still halfway through chewing on his food, you could tell that he was just being sarcastic. After all, she came so far and patiently trained over all these months, so Natsume would be the last person to give her the choice to back out. "You have thirteen minutes left. Thirteen minutes is more than enough time for you to reconsider this mission. If it's too much for you to handle, just drop out. That way, you won't worry anyone, you won't have to worry either and you won't drag anyone down during the mission."

People of the same _Nen_ type would usually share certain personality traits, but when it came down to Natsume, his character always confused her. Although she didn't like to admit it, she felt as if Killua and her had a thing or two in common. The same could be said about Gon and Palm after weeks of observation, believe it or not. However, Natsume was a conjurer, just like Kurapika and Kite, but they were polar opposites. If she were to guess, she would have bet her money on Natsume being an emitter, or even a manipulator. But it was at times like this where his stoic and serious traits came into play. When having to fight a battle, he would be more calm with his mind only on the mission. Seeing Natsume with that rare, stern look on his face never failed to frighten her. It just went on to show how serious everything had become.

"I won't do that," she answered, knowing he was waiting for her to respond. "I'm not going to abandon anyone in this room."

"That's cute, but saying something like that won't help anyone in this room," Natsume informed her, before taking a moment to sip on some juice. "I'm not going to lie to you, so I'll just say this straight to your face. There are many talented people in this room, but I'd rank you as one of the lowest in terms of strength. Morel-san is ahead of us all with all his years of experience, while Knuckle, Shoot, Toshi and I are ahead of you with all the years of training we have. You might have also noticed Killua and Gon's natural talent when it comes to fighting. Meleoron and Ikalgo have the genetic traits of a Chimera ant, so naturally that would give them advantages over ordinary humans."

_"In other words, I'm useless!"_ She thought to herself, summing up Natsume's statement.

"In other words, you're _kinda_ useless if I were to compare you to the others in this room." Natsume tried his best to sugarcoat his words, obviously not doing a good job at it. "Naturally, you can't do much about that. You're not a Chimera ant, and you're not as old as most of us. You're not the daughter of a top rate hunter or assassin either." Although Natsume made her sound like the weakest out of the whole group, she slowly saw the point he was trying to make. She listened and nodded along to everything he was saying, unconsciously agreeing with all his points. "Just clear your head for now!" He instructed her. "When you step out of this room after midnight, you should be prepared to lose your life at any given moment. Although we would like everyone to come back safely, there is no guarantee that we'll all make it back. That's how serious the situation is, so even one hundred percent of your concentration won't be enough. Nothing except the mission should be running through your head after midnight. One single outburst, or even a slight change of heart could cause you to mess up. If you get angry, take your anger out after the mission. If you see something that upsets you, cry once everything is over. For a mission like this, that level of professionalism is expected from Hunters. You don't have years of experience or god-given talent, but you've worked hard to catch up to everyone else. You've developed a way of fighting that suits you the best, and even if it didn't always work out right at the start, it always ended up working in your favour. At this point, there's no need for you to do anything fancy, or fight any differently than you have in the past. Just do everything the way you usually do!"

If anyone were to summarise all that, Natsume just told her to stop looking down on herself and just fight in the same style she normally did. His words were neutral; he didn't try to intentionally make her feel bad about herself, and neither did he want to make the infiltration sound like child's play. He gave her a true word of advice from a professional point of view, knowing she'd be able to take it well. They weren't going to get paid for this job, but initially it did start of as one of their usual contract Hunter jobs. A job is a job, and since they decided to stay and complete it, he wanted Himeko to take it as seriously as he did.

Toshiro had heard words like that before, but it didn't fail to surprise him either. Last time he heard those same words was a few years back, when they went on what they considered a big mission back then. But that time, Natsume's words were directed towards him. If anything Toshiro has learnt, Natsume was the type to tackle his problems head on. His level of concentration was immense, and despite this, Sensei still urged him to improve his concentration further. He didn't want to look at him, scared of being overwhelmed by his aura, but at the same time he refused to look away, wanting to learn from his example.

Himeko didn't look offended of any sort. If anything, she was rather inspired his words. Some of the things he said she didn't think about before joining this mission, or before even becoming a Hunter. Just like any employment out there, this one needed a certain level of professionalism too. She had only been on smaller jobs before, so she never really took it into consideration. At the end of the day, she was glad he enlightened her before they had to head out, despite his cruel way of wording it.

"Fine, I'll keep that in mind," she finally broke the silence with a smile and an honest response. "I'll do my best, and I'll stop worrying too much about dying during the mission. I guess I forgot that being a Hunter is more than just having a license and being able to travel for free." For the boys to see her so optimistic was rare, so they didn't expect that sudden change of attitude. For someone her age to speak so lightly about dying halfway through a mission made Toshiro's heart sink, and even Natsume couldn't help but feel uneasy seeing her smile like that.

"Don't say it like that," Toshiro stopped her, before she could continue. "Give it your all in battle, but do your best to come back home safely too."

"Okay, got it! And speaking of getting home safely, you two have to come back safely too. Sensei wants you to clean your rooms!"

"You're bringing that up now?"

"Why not? I'm just passing on a message, so don't shoot the messenger."

"You have the most inappropriate timings to pass on messages then."

Listening to Toshiro and Himeko's back and forth, Natsume too decided to take it easy for the remaining minutes. There was no guarantee that things were going to turn out right for all three of them, and as he mentioned earlier, there was a chance that someone might get left behind. On the exterior he might have looked emotionless to everyone else, but after imagining all the possible endings to this chapter of his life, he began to hear the loud thumping of his heart. There was no certainty for everything to still be the same afterwards, and that thought alone scared him. He didn't want to have any regrets if anything were to happen during the mission, so that was why he joined their conversation, in his usual, happy-go-lucky manner. "Stop picking on my Kou!" He ordered his elder, putting his arm around Himeko after moving closer.

"Since when was I your Kou?" Himeko retorted, trying to move away from the strawberry blonde teen. This wasn't too uncommon when it came to Natsume, so she was pretty used to it by now.

Natsume responded by booing in a teasing manner, "Wrong answer! You're meant to blush and act all flustered while avoiding my gaze."

"Give me a break! Why do these things only happen to me?"

"Sorry, but we aren't interrupting anything, are we?" Killua questioned, in a weirded out tone. When they looked up, they saw that Killua, Gon and even Ikalgo made their way over after noticing how Himeko made herself comfortable. Since the snacks weren't going to come back to their spot, they decided to move towards the snacks. But looking at the scene unfolding in front of their very eyes, Ikalgo looked rather confused. It makes a lot of sense in his case as he hasn't really gotten acquaintant with Natsume and Toshiro, so he didn't actually know what they were really like. Compared to the dumbfounded Killua, Gon was rather flabbergasted to see everyone so relaxed.

Natsume raised his brow, "You're cockblocking our moment."

"I'm not cockblocking anything," Killua shot back.

"Then, I'm guessing you're jealous?" Natsume's sadistic side gradually started to gain amusement in annoying the younger boy, just like he enjoyed annoying Toshiro back home. Since he expected to hear something from Killua, he had already prepared a couple of counter attacks. But instead, he was surprised to be greeted with silence and a piercing glare. Nonetheless, he decided to add some more fuel to the fire. "Hmm... I guess I was right! How interesting!"

If this were Himeko or Toshiro, they would have snapped right that moment, but Killua just remained calm. "No, not really. Just so you know, you wouldn't be considered a minor in most countries anymore. She can get you arrested if you annoy her too much."

"I still have the soul of a boy," Natsume shrugged off, mimicking Killua's calm and collected exterior. "Besides, my Kou wouldn't do something like that, right Kou?" But when the two looked over to where she was supposed to be sitting, they noticed that she was long gone. Himeko was now sitting a decent distance away from Natsume beside Toshiro, and it appeared that Gon and Ikalgo have joined the pair.

"Just ignore the stupid and the stupid will go away!" Toshiro advised the others, urging them to ignore Natsume, who according to him had a couple of screws loose, and Killua, who instead of ignoring a nutcase felt the urge to pick a fight with him. Although no one gave him a direct response, it looked as if they were already ignoring the two, especially after seeing how Himeko passed out the snacks she was planning to take back with her.

"Don't overeat Gon!" She reminded the raven-haired boy, who was about to do just that. She then passed Ikalgo the dried seaweed snack, "There you go, Tako-kun."

"It's Ikalgo, not Tako-kun!" Ikalgo almost yelled out in frustration. "Don't call me Tako-kun!"

"Do you want me to pour you some juice?" Gon decided to help her with the distribution, and took some disposable paper cups before filling those with orange juice. He took two spare cups before turning to the pair that had just stopped arguing. "Shall I pour you some too?"

"If you don't mind." With Natsume's answer, Gon poured juice into two other paper cups before passing them along to everyone around him.

"Listen up everyone, we have ten minutes left," Morel's voice echoed throughout the whole room, and all the small chit chat between groups was interrupted. "We'll go over the drill one final time now."

The overall mood inside the room took a full 180 degree turn, as everyone abandoned whatever they were doing to stand up and make their way towards the entrance. They had a couple of drills earlier during the day, but they couldn't afford to mess up after this one. As Morel's words repeated in the heads, the infiltration group felt a spine chilling sensation, as if this final drill was the real deal. One by one, they stepped out of the silent room to go outside and take one final look at what was going on outside. Since Knov kept them pretty much updated all this time, there wasn't anything too surprising. The group of citizens standing outside the palace became larger since the last time they took a look, and one last time Morel went over each group's individual plan. Although the initial five minutes Himeko spent together with her friends inside the room felt like an eternity, the three minutes it took to go through the drill just vanished in an instant.

Now, with only seven more minutes remaining, the group returned to the empty room and pretty much continued what they were doing before. The foul mood had cleared again, and for the little time that remained they just held a couple of small talks. Himeko of course did the same, but with very little time remaining, she kept Natsume's word of advice in mind. Her thoughts were weighing her down, but all that laughter gave her a sense of relief from all the stress. She wanted to keep spending more time having these pointless conversations with everyone, or she hoped that at least time would slow down for her. Whatever was left of their time there seemed like nothing, and in times like these time would just decide to fly by. Himeko didn't even want to blink, thinking that it would waste a second of her time left there.

A minute remained, and after Morel's announcement, they all took their positions in front of the door. The anxious Meleoron remained beside Knuckle who didn't allow any traces of fear to show up on his face, whilst Ikalgo prepared his disguise, which was the dead corpse of a Chimera ant called Flutter. Shoot felt relatively uneasy waiting, and took a moment to check up on the youngest three whom he was most concerned about. Killua was pretty much doing the same thing and keeping an eye on Gon. Gon's darkened expression wasn't unexpected, but Killua didn't feel comfortable seeing Gon with that frightening, empty look on his face. Although no one noticed, for a split second Killua's confident look disappeared and was replaced by a more saddened expression. His lips curved downwards into a frown after witnessing Gon's gradual change. What others considered determination to beat Neferpitou, Killua took it as a cry for help. He couldn't predict what exactly would happen during the fight with the ants, but whatever it might be, he couldn't allow Gon to keep turning some unrecognisable beast. He was determined to stay by him, and since Himeko was with the two, that gave him just the tiniest amount of reassurance.

Having looked at Gon's state, Killua turned his head to see how Himeko was coping. Her eyes were fixed on the exit alone and didn't wander around like his own, and her poker face made her even harder to read. He was quite impressed to see how good her concentration had gotten in just the past few days, but her body language couldn't fool him. With one of her hands, she held down the other to prevent it from trembling. While her brain was telling her to focus solely on the mission alone, that didn't stop her heart from racing. At this point, her heartbeat was loud enough for it to be clearly heard by her, and she feared that someone else might hear it in this dead silent room. Killua didn't feel like he was in the position to intervene. It wasn't evident, but deep down he could share the same kind of anxiety that she was feeling. Telling her to calm down would simply sound conceited.

Both of her teachers have also noticed her tensed body language. In this case though, Natsume was the one to make the move by simply tapping on her shoulder. Her reaction time was must faster than usual, so she immediately looked up and stared at him like a deer caught in headlights. But instead of the usual confident smile, or double thumbs up, she only got one, firm nod, reassuring her that it was okay for her to feel anxious. That was when she took some time to look around the room herself. Just by reading some of the expressions, she could see a lot of them had even the smallest bit of fear in them. After being around him for such a long time, she could even sense some fear in Killua's eyes. And even though Morel was wearing his signature shades, she noticed how firmly he was gripping onto his stopwatch, suggesting that he wasn't taking the mission as calmly as everyone thought he was.

Out of everyone, no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't tell what Gon was feeling. There was no sign of fear, or anxiety in his eyes, almost as if he was prepared to throw his life away during this mission. His eyes were filled with pure hatred, but also impatience, as for him, time was going too slowly. Now that she had seen Gon, she didn't know whether she should be more afraid for her own life or his.

...

Meanwhile, whilst the extermination team was preparing to strike at midnight, the Royal Guards themselves were in for a change in plan. Meruem ended up punishing his guards, banning them from going up the second floor of the palace. Originally, they had all prepared to stick by their Kings side in the throne room during the selection process. It could have probably just been the overprotective nature of his guards that got on his nerves, but he decided to draw the line at the most inappropriate time. Not only did were they banished, Meruem also warned Neferpitou about her _En_ usage. No matter how much she tried to reason with him, that vicious, negative aura she was emitting seemed to have bothered him for quite some time now. For now, she was only given permission to use the _En_ outside the palace. Although Neferpitou suggested the possibility of an attack from below the palace, Meruem assured that he would take care of any trespassers.

Menthuthuyoupi sat himself down on the main staircase, not being able to go upstairs to the second floor. Those were the King's orders, and his orders were absolute. Compared to him who was sitting on the large staircase, waiting for something interesting to happen, Shaiapouf couldn't help but grow worried over the King's safety. The King was slowly changing from the cold-hearted ruler he was supposed to become, into someone who was beginning to question and care about his own identity. His name, his purpose for being brought up to the world; he had many questions running through his mind, but his guards could only give him one answer that was always the same; he was the King born to rule over all other creatures. But somehow, that answer never seemed to satisfy him. All four Royal Guards drew a connection between these questions and the girl whom Meruem always played gungi with; Komugi. Shaiapouf especially was bothered by the little, blind girl who seemed to be meddling with the King's mind.

There was nothing special about Komugi; she was a short girl, with pale white skin, and her messy silver hair was tied up into pigtails. Due to her bad eyesight, she would always use a wooden walking stick to aid her. Komugi once mentioned being one of many children her parents had, and she initially began playing gungi to help her family cope financially. What started off as something she did to support her family ended up as the only thing she could thought she could do properly. Her life began to revolve around that simple little board game, so much that she planned to take her own life if she were to ever lose. The one thing she could do properly she didn't want to lose, and if she ever were to lose it, she would have lost everything. Meruem himself pointed out how weak the girl was. She was so fragile, she could be killed in just one strike. With her timid and soft spoken nature, she wasn't someone whom the palace has thought of as a threat. She was just an injured lamb stuck in-between a group of lions, waiting for their king to give them permission to tear her apart. Yet, it was her soft spoken nature that really made her so dangerous to be around the King. Timid, but not afraid to speak her mind, weak, yet strong enough to beat him in a small board game. It was this that intrigued the King the most.

Shaiapouf had many chances to kill the girl off at the start, but it was already too late for him at this point. The King who initially played matches against her just to steal her gungi champion title now played against her simply because he wanted to. The King's abilities allowed him to learn the game and get accustomed to his opponents techniques during matches, so in other words he was a really fast learner. But there was something off about Komugi they all failed to notice at first. No, she never had this ability when first entering the palace, she developed it whilst playing against the King. Although the King learnt every time he played against her, her rate of learning greatly exceeded his despite her disability. Unlike him, she was only good at one single thing, and she couldn't afford to let that go. If she were to die in the hands of the Royal Guards, there would be no conclusion to these countless number of matches. Frustrated with himself, Shaiapouf left the palace to keep a watch outside.

Apednoiraud was banned from entering the second floor just like his fellow guards, and there was something about their situation that irked him. The plan they've chose to follow for weeks now was ruined the moment Meruem sent them away, and now the four were scattered around the palace keeping an eye out for the assassins they've been expecting to attack. They couldn't stand by his side and protect him in the throne room, and the King clearly stated that he'd get rid of any intruders himself if he had to. Not that he dared to question the King's abilities, because he was a lot more skilled than all four of the Royal Guards combined. However, the King needn't protect himself, he had the Royal Guards and army of ants to guard him with their lives. To think that the King would handle the mere humans by himself made him feel almost useless, as if there was no point in his existence anymore. The so-called plan they had for the selection was too disorganised for him to want to follow, but he didn't have much choice.

"The King doesn't want us on the second floor," Neferpitou informed him just a couple of minutes ago.

"The King?"

"He said he'll take care of the intruders himself," Neferpitou answered his question. "I won't advise you to go and convince him to do otherwise, he's in a bad mood. You do remember what happened to you the last time you tried to persuade him to change orders? He already took his anger out on Youpi today, so I guess we all got hit by him at least once." Getting hit by the King wasn't much of a deal; if anything they gladly accepted the punishment and wanted to change their ways afterwards. But since it was Meruem's orders, he can't go against it no matter how unorganised the plan was. If they weren't able to change their plan, they would be failures as Royal Guards anyway.

Neferpitou didn't get an answer out of him. Compared to the other guards, Apendnoiraud was rather quiet and his personality was the complete opposite of Neferpitou's playful personality. Being an ant of few words, he left wondering how he could ensure maximum protection for the King. As Menthuthuyoupi was guarding the main staircase leading to the second floor, he decided to guard the first floor away from the stairs. He was taller than Neferpitou, and had around the same built and height as Shaiapouf. His skin tone was quite dark, it could be considered almost black even. Although he was a mix between a human and black wasp, physically his human genes were more prominent. Despite his unusual skin tone and texture, he looked like a normal human being wearing a pair of black trousers, and a white shirt under a white lab coat. His mouth and most of his nose were covered by a black surgical mask, and his eyes had very large eye bags underneath them. His black hair was in a buzz cut, so it wasn't really that noticeable. Other than that, he also had a set of large, clear wings, just like those of a regular wasp.

Like Shaiapouf, Neferpitou decided stand watch outside and guard the area with her _En_ as ordered by Meruem. Being a mix of a cat and a human, she didn't have the ability to fly unlike the other guards, she she stood on top of a nearby pillar to get a clear view of what is happening around her. Her eyes were sharp enough to catch sight of the smoke puppets sent towards their way by Morel for the past couple of days, and although those were just a decoy, she knew something was going to happen that night and a part of her couldn't wait. Just like an ordinary cat would move a ball of wool around out of curiosity, she was curious to see just who was sending out those smoke puppets, and although her cat-like instincts wanted her to go and play with them, the strict orders she was given kept her in place. She knew that whoever sent those puppets would appear that night, and she was more than prepared for it.

With everyone in place in the palace, and the extermination team preparing to leave in a minute time, a large, chinese dragon circling around high above the clouds. Neferpitou's _En_ wasn't able to detect whoever it was as it was too high up. She had no idea that something that big was approaching the palace, but just that moment, she decided to look up from where she was sitting. She didn't know why she did it; deep down she just felt like looking up at that particular moment. _'Look up, and maybe, just maybe, you'll see something that could interest you', _her reason to look up was just that, that was how faint her hunch was.

But once she decided to look up at the pitch black sky, she was able to spot something from afar. _"Something is coming!" _Neferpitou moved from where she was sitting to a much higher place, hoping her exceptional senses would be able to sense something. No, she was still too far down and couldn't confirm just what was heading her way, and how many of them there were; she just knew that they were her enemy.

Now, Neferpitou could choose between two actions. She could either go back into the palace to protect the King, or she could stay behind and fight. But it didn't take long for her to choose the latter, and her feline instincts played a large part in this decision. The _En_ she used to cover the ground, she now decided to use vertically so she could detect just how many people were coming her way. The sudden change in intensity of her _En_ alerted Shaiapouf who wasn't too far away from her, and although he noticed his fellow guards odd behaviour, he couldn't begin to imagine just what was heading their way. Neferpitou waited for her aura to reach whatever was coming down, she waited patiently. But as soon as her _En_ clashed with the chinese dragon formed by its users purple coloured _Nen, _that straight, composed face she had been wearing this whole entire time turned into a smirk, and then grew further into a wide and vicious grin.

_"Two,"_ she thought to herself in amusement. _"There are two strong men." _She ceased her _En_ and prepared to go into battle, that wide grin not leaving her face. However, it took seconds for that smirk to be wiped off her face and she could only watch in horror as that large dragon divided into hundreds, maybe even thousands of smaller ones, and they were all headed straight towards the palace.

It was finally midnight, and Shaiapouf immediately darted off towards the palace in order to protect his King, while Neferpitou could only sit on all fours and watch the small, golden arrows head their way, dumbstruck. Ceasing her _En_ and preparing to go into battle was the first mistake she made that night. These two strangers were an even bigger threat to the King than she initially thought, and that alone was able to heighten her senses to their maximum. She took a moment to scan through the arrows coming their way, trying to spot the intruders before springing into action. The arrows weren't a significant threat to her, so she dodged the ones coming her way until she was finally face to face with one of the two intruders: Chairman of the Hunter Association, Isaac Netero.

Netero did not faze at the sight of her, neither did he move a muscle although she was coming his way. Neferpitou was quite infamous amongst all the Hunters that were involved in the mission, so Netero had heard quite a lot about her, and her abilities. He just waited for her to make the first move before he could counter her attack.

"Terpsichoral!" Just as he expected, Neferpitou wasted no time to activate her strongest ability, and a large, deep red entity appeared behind her. The ability took less than ten seconds to activate, and Neferpitou knew that she needed to go to these extremes to fight the enemy she was up again. But yet again, her animalistic instincts had let her down again. Her first mistake was when she stopped using _En, _and her second mistake was her rushing in to attack.

Netero just scoffed at her efforts. From an ant that relied purely on primal instincts, he expected no less. "You've made a bad move, little ant!" Neferpitou could hear him say. "I've prepared for far worse."

Neferpitou looked slightly surprised by his words, and also by his calm behaviour. She expected someone on his level to know the intensity of her attack, and she was taken back to be met by a scoff. She didn't yet realise that this was a hasty move on her part, and continued with her attack. But before she could even start her attack, she noticed something strange about her opponent. Those fluid, hand movements were almost like water flowing down a river. For her, time has slowed down as she watched those graceful movements without continuing her attack. She couldn't, her eyes and mind were too fixed on what her opponent was doing to launch an attack herself. As soon as Netero finished, she felt as if she could move yet again, but it was too late for that. Netero launched his attack. Unlike all the others involved in the plan, Netero trained the longest and the hardest. The attack he practiced for nearly half a century was close to perfection, so no matter how fast she was, she wouldn't be able to dodge something that powerful.

_"That should keep you preoccupied."_

The intensity of the attack made her fly back at an insanely fast speed. All she could think about was his attack, wondering where the hell it came from. Before she even knew it, she was well away from the palace, travelling even further back. There was nothing she could hang on to in order to stop herself from travelling back even further, and although she spotted Shaiapouf flying towards the palace, she knew he was too worried about the King to hear her voice.

A thought suddenly occurred to her, and she wasted no time to call out her Doctor Blythe. Right now, Doctor Blythe was of no use to her and that specific technique of hers could only be used to heal injuries. The large figure would stay stationary wherever it would be called, and that itself was one of this techniques limitations. However, in this case this limitation worked out in Neferpitou's favour . As her tail was connected to Doctor Blythe, the stationary figure prevented her from flying back even further and she eventually came to a halt. But it was too late. Her eyes widened in horror as she was far enough to see the whole building in the distance, and the golden arrows raining down from the sky were just about to break down the palace. She couldn't do anything now, she was too far away to do anything.

Whilst this scene unfolded outside the palace, a whole different scene was about start indoors. The guards outside were thrown into a state of disorder, but the two guards inside the palace were completely oblivious to what was going on. Instead, they just waited for something to pop out of no where. Just like that, at midnight Menthuthuyoupi saw a group of Hunters run towards him from the corner of his eye. He didn't know where they came from, neither did he know why neither he nor Neferpitou sensed their presence. Though surprised at first, he saw through their intentions to make their way upstairs and stood up to fight them and prevent them from doing just that.

Shoot who was leading the way was the first person to spot the giant Royal Guard. Too soon, it was way too soon for this. It hadn't even been ten seconds since they've infiltrated, and there was already a surprise in store for them. Despite his initial shock, he kept going knowing the seriousness of the mission. It was too late for him to turn back now, and he was told to expect anything after going through the doors. Knuckle who was carrying Meleoron on his back stayed close behind Shoot, but the enemy couldn't see him because of Meleoron's ability. Compared to Shoot however, Knuckle looked more composed than Shoot seeing their opponent.

The group that was meant to fight Neferpitou was behind the pair, and Gon was the first one to spot and remained unfazed, his eyes lacking any kind of emotion. Killua was next to notice, and for some reason, he expected the plan to not work out from the start. Although Killua repeated it time and time again, Himeko looked caught off guard seeing an Royal Guard this early on the mission. He was massive, larger than Neferpitou whom she feared despite her small frame. Despite the early meeting, everyone else kept going so she had no other choice either. But seeing how he was preparing to fight worried her. She wasn't supposed to get involved in the battle with Menthuthuyoupi, and if no one did anything, then this encounter with him could mess up the rest of the mission. She knew nothing was in her hands at that point, everything was up to Shoot who was already leading the group and heading straight in. This wasn't her role, she wasn't meant to get involve and had to trust Shoot to handle this. In the end, she quietly kept moving behind Gon, trying not to draw too much attention to herself.

Behind Himeko were Natsume, Toshiro and the pair was followed by Morel, who was the last person to exit Knov's dimensional room. Just like the others, the three noticed the Chimera ant blocking the main staircase, and although seeing him this early on took them by surprise, they chose to remain calm and waited for the ant to make the first move. With all this confusion going on, Ikalgo, who was disguised as Flutter managed to make his way to the elevator unnoticed.

Although nine infiltrators were determined to make it past him, Menthuthuyoupi was prepared to shield the King's life with his body and prepared to kill anyone who was a threat to him.

* * *

**A/n-** Sorry it took so long to update. I had a mini authors block and ended up writing this chapter a couple of times because I wasn't satisfied with the previous versions of it. I knew what I was going to write, I just didn't know what to write (if that makes sense lol). Also, my laptop's display stopped working a couple of days ago, so I might not be able to update until I get a new laptop. I'll try my best to write the next chapter on my brothers' laptops or computer, but since they have these weird mood swings I can't predict when they'll let me use their gadgets and when they'll just tell me to get lost xD . Well, I managed to get a laptop off them to finish this chapter off, so hopefully I'll manage until I get a new laptop!

**Review Corner**

**SilverDewDrop-** I love science, it's my best subject followed my maths lol xD I'm probably going to do something science related in university so I have to be good at it. And yeah, it's a little like alcohol tolerance, but for that you can also build up a tolerance. I'm not really sure if there is a 'gene' that affects alcohol tolerance though, while in this case she wasn't given drugs etc to build up a tolerance (like in Killua's case with poison) but instead her genetic makeup was modified to make her more tolerant to drugs/poisons etc.

And tbh, Gon is pretty good with the girls as seen in the anime. To keep someone like Palm under control requires skills! With short temper, I think that's one of the traits of an enhancer (I'm not really sure though)

**AJPJweallluvJJ****-** She's the future president of the itty bitty titti committee xD

**havanatitania-** She did fuck up, but then again that was part of the point in me giving her the ability. She isn't exactly the kind of character to listen to advice from others (in this case Kurapika and Natsume), and she was overconfident in herself when it came to being reasonable with the restrictions. I guess I do portray her as a smart character, but it's more of a 'textbook smart', so when it comes to these kinds of things she learns them via trial and error. Vows and Limitation isn't something she can read off a book and just memorise, so yeah she was supposed to be a little stupid in that context. And yeah you're right, she is kinda like a slave to her ability, just like Kurapika is. The only difference is that Kurapika has his life hanging on the line.

And you'd just have to wait and see what kind of impact she'll have in the palace. ^^ Sorry for the late update!

**WhiteBlack (from chapter 47)-** I never really intended for her to be a perfect character. Just like an ordinary human being like us she has her strengths and weaknesses. Just like a normal person, there are moments where she's likable and there are moments when you just want to scream at her. That's just the kind of character I made her to be. And although she is the 'main heroine' of this story, Gon is still the main character of this arc, so I didn't want to change that and mess too much with Togashi's work.

**ImaginaryPencil (from chapter 4)-** I doubt you'll see this but I'll still reply lmao xD. She's the main character, but she is sort of a character like Kurapika and Leorio who are always off doing their own thing.

**iiWolvesOfRuin**** (from chapter 31)-** Now that you quote that from one of my earlier chapters I cringed so bad, but I laughed anyway. But then again, you meet the strangest people on the internet, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear that on some kind of dodgy relationship advice forum xD


	60. Courage

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 60**

_Courage_

_..._

After Shoot came to a halt, everyone who was running closely behind him also stopped until the last person, who was Shoot and Knuckle's mentor Morel met the eyes of their first, unexpected opponent. Menthuthuyoupi's eyes widened at the sight of the nine strangers, who were merely a couple of feet away from him. Two Royal Guards kept watch outside, two kept watch inside, so how were these humans able to get inside so easily? What in the world were Neferpitou and Shaiapouf doing outside for these outsiders to invade the palace? No, something wasn't right. Menthuthuyoupi might have had his moments with the other guards, but he trusted their skills as much as he trusted his own. They couldn't have come from the outside. They couldn't have made it past Neferpitou's _En, _so they must have taken another route that led them to the central staircase, where they were currently standing.

Nonetheless, despite being hit and shunned from the second floor by the King, his loyalty towards him didn't fade a bit. It was the exact opposite, his pupils dilated as he stared at the infiltrators, "I will protect the King with my body!" With that, the Royal Guard shape-shifted into a terrifying creature with multiple long limbs which were trying to cover as much of the staircase as possible. He wasn't lying about wanting to protect the King with his body, and he was doing just that by becoming a living wall.

Seeing his new form, not everyone was able to stay calm anymore. Killua who expected such an encounter wasn't too surprised, and Gon who knew that this wasn't the Royal Guard he was after managed to somehow keep a calm form, too. Morel and Natsume managed not to make much of a fuss either, and the fact that he was invisible made Knuckle keep a cool head. Himeko, Toshiro and Meleoron were on the edge after seeing the sudden transformation of their enemy, but nothing could beat the anxiety Shoot was feeling when face to face with the now much stronger Menthuthuyoupi.

Shoot recalled Menthuthuyoupi's words, and he was certain that it wasn't a bluff. He froze as his face was drained of blood, knowing that his opponent was prepared to attack at any given moment. One wrong move could mean game over for him. Cautiously, he began moving his cage and floating hand towards his target, hoping he could land an attack before his opponent. He was up against one of the King's best subordinates, so there was no doubt in his mind that this attack had a low chance of actually suceeding. No, he was certain that it wouldn't work out. He was absolutely terrified, hands were trembling and cold sweat was running down the side of his forehead as he focused on nothing else but the giant maroon creature standing in front of him.

_"This isn't going to work out, I won't be able to handle him by myself!" _Shoot began to think, but not even a millisecond later, his thinking bubble popped, leaving him exposed to his fellow teammates, as well as his opponent overwhelmed by a shower of golden arrows raining down on them and tearing down everything in their way. Shoot tried to grasp the situation quickly by wanting to find the cause of the sudden chaos. These arrows came from above, but this was an ability he had never seen before. Morel, as well as Menthuthuyoupi looked equally as surprised as him, so he could conclude that this was neither the Chairman nor the King's doing.

While everyone was trying to make sense of their situation, Killua remembered something Morel told them earlier. '_Chairman Netero's gone to visit an old friend of his,' _he remembered him saying. The attack which consisted of a large chinese dragon dispersing into small, golden arrows was a technique he saw quite a few times. He immediately knew who caused all this. "Grandpa," he muttered under his breath.

Although Killua was the first person to actually figure out the culprit behind the mystery attack, Gon was the first one to react. While the arrows were still raining down on them, Gon hesitated no further to make his way up the stairs, heading straight towards the enemy. The reason behind his actions remained unknown to everyone who remained behind. Naturally, everybody began to assume that he was targeting Menthuthuyoupi, who was now waiting for Gon to come closer so he could attack. Just like this, Gon's way of thinking remained a riddle to those around him, as most of them feared he was making the wrong move. However, whilst everyone else was caught up in the Menthuthuyoupi's transformation as well as the unexpected rain shower, Gon filtered those worries out as unnecessary and not worth pondering about. It was something he decided before stepping into Knov's portal, and that alone helped him become a lot more perceptive and sharp of his surrounding.

_"I have to find Pitou," _was the only thing running through his head at that given moment, and although this level of focus was rare to see when it came to Gon, Killua who understood him more than anyone else there was quick to figure out his motive and chase after him. As soon as Killua took his first few steps towards the stairs, Himeko began to think harder. She was also one to trust Gon's sudden impulses, and Killua seemed to have figured out something that she still hasn't. With the mindset he had right now, she knew Gon wouldn't get mixed up in any unwanted battles. He had his priorities set in stone after all.

_"It has to be something else," _she thought carefully, giving her surrounding another good look. _"Gon took the lead, Killua's nearly caught up and Youpi's preparing to attack. Shoot's trying to digest the situation in front of me, Natsu and the others are still behind me. Ikalgo successfully avoided this situation." _But as soon as she saw another arrow fall down right in front of her, she finally realised it. She realised something Killua realised just moments before her, and Gon figured out much earlier. The other Chimera ant working with them, as well Knuckle were still invisible; but it wasn't the fact that they were invisible that caused Gon to act this way, it was the frightening disadvantage of it. _"Where are Knuckle and Meleoron?!"_ If Meleoron and Knuckle were to get hit and die right now, Meleoron's ability would cause their corpses to remain invisible. In other words, there bodies might never be found.

As soon as she realised just that, she chased after the pair. It was probably due to the trust she had in the two that caused her to figure it out so easily. She trusted them to take this mission seriously, and because of that the two boys would never even dream of messing things up. Luckily, Gon was just as perceptive as ever, maybe even sharper than usual. Whatever was on his mind didn't cloud his thoughts; instead, it motivated him to do better.

Gon managed to deduce that Knuckle might actually be using all this chaos as an advantage to carrying on moving towards the throne room. The Chimera ant was distracted for just a moment, and that alone was more than enough reason to use this as their advantage. But that didn't change the fact that this surprise attack must have taken both Meleoron and Knuckle off guard as well. In any case, the pair now had to dodge the approaching arrows and successfully get past the Royal Guard. But since Gon was heading straight towards Menthuthuyoupi, his sole focus was to eliminate the three Hunters he could see coming his way. But of course Gon didn't have any intentions to attack him, however the spectators downstairs didn't have a clue on how they were going to avoid the giant ant and get past him.

They were at the palace for just a mere couple of seconds, yet so much has happened already. Shoot and the rest seemed to have finally figured out why Gon was headed straight ahead with no second thoughts, eliminating their initial belief of him blindly going in to fight. But it wasn't just Gon alone. After hesitating for a couple of moments, his friends followed, suggesting that they must have figured something out that their elders didn't. Gon was one of the youngest and inexperienced in the whole group, yet Shoot who was previously only impressed by Killua's calm and collected attitude found himself astonished by not just Gon's courage, but also his quick thinking in this situation. The group that he was supposed to lead and protect from Menthuthuyoupi trusted him, although he was just cowering in front of his opponents enormous form. The immense trust the young boy had in his team made him come to a conclusion, _"I have to work harder!"_

Just then, Knuckle gave them a long awaited sign, informing the others that him and Meleoron were still alright. The duo was further ahead compared to Gon, and Knuckle seemed to have landed a hefty punch on Menthuthuyoupi's torso, causing him to look in Knuckles direction after being taken by surprise. However, he was slightly confused to see no one standing there, and to add onto that, Gon and the other two managed to make it past him by seizing that moment of confusion. But not only did Knuckle pack a good punch, he also managed to equip the enemy with his best technique. The little, innocent looking mascot APR that he used in his previous fight with Gon was now attached to Menthuthuyoupi, floating above his shoulder, remaining invisible due to the effect of Meleoron's ability. Although Shoot also decided to use this opportunity to head up the stairs, Menthuthuyoupi who was now sick and tired of the invaders destroyed the whole staircase to prevent any other outsiders to follow Gon. The whole first floor shook due to the immense destructive power, and the main staircase was now no more than pieces of rubble.

Gon, Himeko and Killua disappeared in the smog that now covered the entire central staircase, leaving the rest to Shoot and the others. In the debris lied Shoot, whilst Morel, Natsume and Toshiro found a spot to hide from the now furious beast. Morel wasn't supposed to get involved and instead had to find an opportunity to leave the scene to find Shaiapouf, whom he had to keep away from the King. The same could be said about the other two, who were supposed to be fighting Apendnoiraud. However, it looked as if they couldn't leave the scene; at least for now. Knuckle's invisible punch and the fact that Gon and the other managed to slip past him enraged the Royal Guard. By now, Menthuthuyoupi has shape-shifted again and in addition to his multiple limbs, countless eyes appeared both on his head and neck. Getting out of that situation was no good for now, he would be able to spot anyone who tried to slip past him.

Seeing him in this form, Knuckle began to take a good look from where he was standing just a few feet behind him. The multiple eyes emerged because he couldn't see who was punching him, but from now on he had to be more careful. Not only did his physical form change, his strength must have increased too. This made Knuckle wonder how many times he could actually change shape, and just how strong his final form might be. He also began questioning the effectiveness of his APR. Him having unlimited potential could lead to his ability being completely useless. His _Nen_ would take a very long time to drain, and Knuckle feared that they might not even be able to last for that long.

During Menthuthuyoupi's sudden fit of rage, Shoot managed to get injured. After finding a good spot to hide, he took a good look at his right leg. _"Damn it, I got hit."_ There was no doubt that it was broken. Menthuthuyoupi did not move from his spot and rather planned to just stop anyone from entering the second floor. Since Shoot was a safe distance away, he was okay for now, but he was well aware that things couldn't go on like this. Moreover, he began to wonder why the ant wasn't by the King's side just as they initially anticipated.

Shoot and Knuckle weren't the only ones deep in thoughts while staring at their enemy. Natsume and Toshiro were also in hiding and although a long silence engulfed the pair as they waited for someone to make the next move, Natsume's almost non-existent whisper sounded like a pin being dropped in a dead silent room to both his black-haired partner and Morel who also was nearby. "The Royal Guards must have had a sudden change of plan," he told, saying everyone's thoughts out loud. "I can't sense Pitou's infamous _En_ either, so I don't think she's in the palace either. Well, I don't think she was until now. Seeing how the roof has destroyed, I'm sure the ants that were outside must be headed towards the King's location to make sure he's not hurt."

"This situation is convenient for the Chairman. I'm sure that he was the one who made such a grand entrance." Morel added, and the two boys turned to him in surprise, not expecting him to involve himself in the conversation. "But the way things are now, it's quite inconvenient for us. If you are correct, the Royal Guards are scattered around the palace and we have to find them."

"There is a good chance that all of them are within the palace right now!" Natsume deduced. "I'm certain that Pitou wouldn't risk not using _En_, but since they didn't anticipate an infiltration from within the palace she must have been surrounding the palace with it. She must have spotted Chairman Netero approaching the throne room, so I'm guessing she'll head there along with anyone else who saw the attack from outside."

Hearing this, Toshiro came to a safe conclusion, "So, despite the sudden change of plan, Himeko and the others are still heading in the right direction!"

"Yes, I thought so too!" Morel admitted. "They are still on track. But seeing how they've been separated from us all of the sudden, I can't help but feel a little uneasy."

"Killua is with them, so that alone is enough reason to stay calm." Natsume reassured. "Himeko should be okay for now as well. I reminded her of the seriousness of the situation, I don't think she will act based on impulses alone."

"Right, so that only leaves Gon!" Morel announced once he reached to the cause of his uneasiness. "He's focused now, but I can't help but worry what will happen once he encounters Pitou. All we can do right now is trust those three."

"Yeah, for now we have to focus on getting past this monster," Natsume said, as he nodded his head in agreement. "We can't use the central staircase anymore, for more than just one reason. We have to find a way to reach the throne room via a different route. But first, we need to get out of this mess." Natsume reminded his peers of their respective roles in the mission. None of the three were supposed to be fighting against Menthuthuyoupi, and their priority right now was to go off and find the other Royal Guards and make sure they stayed out of Netero's way.

"In that case, I'll be able to help you two." Morel announced, which once again surprised the pair. He proceeded to ask them to listen carefully to his plan, tightly gripping his giant smoke pipe. "I'll make a smoke screen, and the two of you will be able to use that opportunity to get away."

"What about you?" Toshiro asked, wondering whether he was actually planning on staying behind.

"I'll do the same eventually," he smiled confidently, before proceeding to fix his sunglasses with his forefinger. "But right now, I have the duty to stay behind and help my cute, little pupils." Natsume gave their team leader an assertive grin, before nodding along to his plan. Toshiro on the other hand couldn't help but still feel anxious with how everything turned out. However, after hearing their conversation, he couldn't object with their now fixed plan. As they've discussed countless times before, all they had to do for now was distract their assigned Royal Guard. They just had to stay on track.

After finalising their plan, Morel began to use the smoke pipe to slowly fill the surrounding area with smoke. Although Shoot and Knuckle were too far away to hear their conversation, after seeing smoke appear from the rubble, they were certain that Morel had some sort of plan. It wasn't too difficult for them to get the gist of the situation, and all they could do was wait for the white smoke to engulf the whole area. Not too soon after, Morel was the first to emerge from the smoke screen, confronting the Royal Guard who was waiting for someone to make the first move. However, he had no plans on landing a direct attack on the monstrous being, and instead used his smoke pipe to create dozens of smoke puppets, all headed straight towards their target.

"Tch, this is nothing." Menthuthuyoupi was unfazed by the smoke puppets heading his way, yet at the same time he was too fixed on destroying them to actually realise that they were only a decoy to let Natsume and Toshiro get away from there. Knowing that this was their cue to leave, the pair left the scene through the thick smoke. With the basic layout of the palace in their head, they headed for the nearest way up to the throne room on the third floor.

Shoot was close enough to see the pair leave, and he was relieved. Now that two of the four groups were back on track, the only person left to leave was their mentor Morel, who was hiding again within the thick fog. Although this wasn't the time to do so, Shoot still couldn't help but be impressed by Morel's abilities. Not only did he manage to give the dojo boys the opportunity to get away, he was also planning on taking this as a chance to escape to go and hunt down Shaiapouf. Before he left though, Shoot heard him whisper, "My job here is done, I'm leaving the rest to you boys!" Shoot knew that he must have noticed the injury he got from the enemy's earlier attack, yet his teacher had so much trust and confidence in his pupils. This was more than enough reason to keep on fighting, he couldn't betray the trust his teacher had. Morel then looked up at the staircase, knowing that Knuckle must be there somewhere with Meleoron._ "I know you can't hear me, but the same goes for you too, Knuckle!"_

Whilst Menthuthuyoupi was working his way through all the smoke puppets, he was looking out for any signs of a proper attack. The multiple eyes he had were aiding him to have a full 360 degree view from where he was standing, so wanting to ambush him was no use. However, he noticed a large, bulky man with white hair wearing black sunglasses coming out from the smoke to his left. The larger man was one of the men he saw in the the group of intruders; in fact he was the very last one to enter. The man carried a large pipe, and swung this towards him. _"How stupid!" _he thought, knowing how futile an ambush attack was when he was in his current form. As his limbs were preoccupied with the smoke puppets, Menthuthuyoupi used his ability once again to create an addition arm. He used the arm to block the wooden pipe that was swung towards him with full force and stopped it. _"This one's the real deal."_

As the Royal Guard was able to stop the wooden pipe without it materialising into thin air, he naturally assumed that this was not just a puppet made out of smoke. Instead of swinging his arm towards the pipe, he aimed straight for Morel. However, upon touching his upper torso, Menthuthuyoupi realised something; this was a decoy too. This wasn't the real thing. His eyes frantically searched the area in order to find the real Morel. It wasn't too long until he found the man, wasting no time to run past him up the staircase. _"He used his own weapon as a decoy, but he's not going to get past me this easily."_

All the anger and annoyance that built up in him because of yet another person having slipped past him reached it's limit. But unlike Gon's case, he wasn't prepared to let Morel get away this easily. Now that the enemy was clear in sight, all he had to do was land the finishing blow and destroy him. As he was preparing to annihilate the potential threat to the King's life, he experienced the same throbbing sensation to in his lower torso area as before. It wasn't painful to him, but he was still able to feel it the impact.

Someone was messing with him, and that same person made him lose sight of Morel. "DAMN YOU!" He yelled, enraged at the fact that Morel got away from him. Knuckle who was still invisible thanks to Meleoron's ability moved further back to increase the distance between him and the monster after throwing the punch. Both of his attacks so far were successful, but he could only look at the little plushie like being that was still stuck to Menthuthuyoupi's enormous figure. It grew a few inches in size, but looking at the state of it, it would take a long time for the Chimera ant to go into debt. No, he wasn't even sure how long it would take for Menthuthuyoupi to completely be drained of _Nen_. Someone with such an large supply of aura could never run out so easily.

_"Just how much longer will Shoot have to endure this?" _he thought, worrying for his teammate. Although Knuckle and Meleoron's eyes were completely fixed on the Royal Guard, Knuckle's eyes seemed to have caught a shadow moving in the smoke behind it. Knuckle wasn't the only one, Menthuthuyoupi calmed down and came back to his senses after sensing something moving around behind him. He turned around to focus his attention on the figure moving around in the smoke, thinking it could potentially be the very same person who managed to land two punches on him. Seeing how the Royal Guard had now turned his back towards them, Meleoron also looked into the distance, having a vague idea on who it might be. The end's of Knuckle's lips curved upwards as he could make out the person floating in the air, _"Speak of the devil!"_

Despite one of his legs being utterly useless, Shoot wasn't prepared to wave a white flag and surrender yet. During the short amount of time Morel, Meleoron and Knuckle have bought for him, he managed to think of a completely different way to continue fighting. Sure, he couldn't use one of his legs anymore, but his other leg was still functional. Although this wasn't a technique he used or even practiced using before, Shoot thought that this was the only way for him to continue fighting. Using his still functional leg, he balanced on one of his levitating hands with two other hands floating on either side of him. He gave his opponent a confident smirk, covering one of his eyes with a bandana.

Though he had never experimented using this technique before, Shoot hesitated no further to switch from defence to offence. The two hands, both engulfed in a neon green aura speedily moved towards Menthuthuyoupi, attacking him without giving him a break. And despite his injury, Shoot's balance was flawless. The hand he was balancing on was moving at tremendous speed, so quickly that someone who had no experience should have fallen off long ago. But Shoot managed to pull it off effortlessly. His comrades and his mentor were both watching him and put so much trust on his shoulders. The same Shoot that looked at Menthuthuyoupi with a mortified expression upon entering the palace now faced him head to head. By now he must have thrown at least a couple hundreds of punches, but only a couple of milliseconds have gone by. Yet, for Shoot to work alone and force the larger Royal Guard to defend himself from the attack was mind-blowing, but at the same time, Shoot felt as though he finally discovered his true potential. Unlike the hot-headed, quick to act teammate he had, he was always a lot more cautious with his moves. So cautious that he always capped his abilities without his own awareness. After finally taking that cap off, he realised just how limitless his potential was. Even if it was just for mere seconds, he wanted to keep going. He wanted Knuckle and Morel to rely on him. He wanted to take charge of the situation.

Whilst he was preoccupied blocking the attack, Menthuthuyoupi momentarily lost track of Morel's weapon that was still lying on the ground. Maybe it was because of his animalistic instincts, something that separated him from his fellow Royal Guards. Unlike the three other Royal Guards who were all part human, Menthuthuyoupi had no human side to him. His anger was something he couldn't control, and he was always mocked by Shaiapouf and Apendnoiraud that his anger was something 'he should work on'. Maybe he didn't realise it himself, but his rage was comparable to a large flame that could engulf an entire forest. His ability became stronger with his uncontrollable emotions. Menthuthuyoupi focused his attention on the attack, and he was too busy to notice that another one of Shoot's floating hands managed to grab Morel's wooden pipe and swiftly move it to the owner.

Morel grabbed firm hold of his weapon once it was in his possession again. After adjusting his sunglasses, he took one last glance at Shoot and Menthuthuyoupi through the thick, white smoke before mentally thanking them for their assistance. _"Knuckle, Shoot, I owe you two one for this!"_ He thought, smiling proudly at his pupils. _"Once this is done, the first thing we'll do is go and get drunk. That's the only way you will let me to give you two a big hug in return for this." _Although pretty much everyone entered the palace with little to no hope of returning home safely, Morel had this gut feeling that both his pupils will do just fine. With that thought set in his mind, he ran straight to the throne room.

So far, except for Knuckle, Shoot and Meleoron, all other groups have started heading towards the same goal but taking different routes. There were multiple ways to get to the throne room, some more complex than others. The simplest way was to use the central staircase, but since Menthuthuyoupi destroyed it, none of them could use that way. Gon, Killua and Himeko who were caught in the middle of the attack were forced to change direction in order to dodge. All three instinctively moved towards the same direction and landed a safe distance in front of Ikalgo, who was disguised as Flutter. The four were now headed towards the eastern palace where the elevator was located. Soon, they would have to split up with Ikalgo having to go down the elevator, and Gon and the others having to move up the stairs to the second floor of the eastern tower, where they could then jump to the central tower where the throne room was on the third floor.

Similarly, Toshiro and Natsume headed west, hoping they could jump to the central tower via the western tower. But unlike the other group, the pair eventually came to a stop once they came face to face with a Chimera ant, who looked as if he had been expecting them. The boys cautiously took a couple of steps back before analysing the ant in front of them. Not all of them have seen a Royal Guard before; in fact, only Gon, Killua and Himeko were able to get a close-up view of Neferpitou. They needed insiders to provide them with more information about specific features they should be looking out for when identifying a Royal Guard, and Colt who was once working very closely to the deceased Queen had seen all the Royal Guards before and knew how they all looked like. This particular Chimera ant had a very dark, almost black shell. Physically however, he resembled a normal human with a surgical mask covering majority of his face. The pair run through a mental check list: human-like features, body covered in a shiny, black shell, large clear wings and a long, white lab coat. This was him, according to Colt's description this was Apendnoiraud.

Natsume and Toshiro were in no position to be discussing answers with each other, but they were able to trust each other to come up with a reasonable conclusion to who this ant was. They were surprised to run into him so early, but after running into Menthuthuyoupi earlier was a much bigger shock. They should have at least been prepared to run into another Royal Guard not too soon after. But in a way, running into Apendnoiraud here was to their own advantage. After all, they had to keep him away from the King but he was already from the King who was supposedly in the throne room. The boys watched him in silence, waiting for the Royal Guard to make the first move.

"So, that's what all the commotion was about," he said in an almost inaudible murmur. He continued to speak in his low, threatening voice, "How were you two able to get past Pitou and Youpi?" He asked, not expecting an answer. "No, why were you two able to get past them?" Despite their clashing personality traits, all Royal Guards had full trust and understanding in each others' skills. "Pitou's _En_ surrounded the outside of the palace, you must have infiltrated from within. Youpi must have been preoccupied with something else for you two to have made it this far. Just how many of you are there?" The Royal Guard was able to come up with a conclusion on his own instantly, before asking his next question. But once again, he did not expect the two intruders to answer. "If you're able attack from within the palace, you've done your research. There's a lot more of you, including traitors. Your aim is our King's life."

The Chimera ant proceeded to take a good look at the two boys, wanting to read their expressions to confirm his own theory. Both boys wore poker-faces, not knowing what else to do in their current position. For Natsume who was typically seen with a confident grin on his face, this was just his thinking face. He knew their opponent wasn't stalling for time, he just wanted to know their objectives before taking care of them once and for all. In a way, Natsume was just doing the same as the Royal Guard. He tried to read the ant's movements, looking out for any potential attacks, but he also wanted to try and learn what kind of fighter he was.

_"He had so many opportunities to attack us, he could have easily caught us off guard."_ Natsume thought, thinking back to how Apendnoiraud must have sensed someone heading towards him. _"Youpi didn't hesitate to attack, neither did he think about it for this long. But I'm pretty sure all the guards would behave the same way if they knew their King was in danger. They were practically programmed to freak out and protect the King from danger."_

_"Natsu must be thinking the same thing, it's strange he isn't attacking us when we are just standing here out in the open." _Toshiro was practically wearing the same expression as his younger teammate. But one thing Apendnoiraud managed to pick up was the number of times he blinked in comparison to Natsume. The blinking itself set the still composed Natsume apart from the taken back Toshiro. Not just that, Apendnoiraud noticed that although both were initially surprised to see him, the boy with the strawberry blonde hair looked rather pleased to see him. It was the same look a little boy would have upon winning a game of hide and go seek after finding all players.

After they spent some time exchanging looks, Apendnoiraud took one step forward. Seeing this, Natsume narrowed his eyes as his eyes didn't budge from the enemy, _"He figured us out!" _He didn't take a step back, knowing it would just be an invitation for the enemy to attack. Toshiro's guts told him to remain still too, and so he did.

"Now I understand, you two aren't after the King. You were intending to go after one of us guards to begin with. You were surprised to run into me so early on, thinking I must have been in the throne room, yet at the same time you were happy to find me by myself." He looked at the two boys once again, wanting to confirm his theory. Just as he wanted, Toshiro was the first person he got a reaction out of. The taller male with black hair hasn't removed his almond shaped eyes from the Chimera ant, who was staring straight back at him. Maybe it was because Apendnoiraud knew how much easier it was to get a reaction out of him compared the the younger, more composed boy. It was very brief, but Toshiro's furrowed brows confirmed his suspicion. The Royal Guard picked up on this, "Humans are such simple creatures."

Having said that, the Royal Guard took one step closer to the boys, but neither of them reacted, just like earlier. At this point, it was nothing more than a game of statue. Apendnoiraud was just looking for a single movement that would provoke him, and end up forcing him to act. Natsume and Toshiro knew this very well, but at the same time, the duo knew that they couldn't just stand around for long. Even if Apendnoiraud was looking for a reason to attack at the moment, it didn't mean that he wouldn't attack eventually. At the end of the day, all they had to do was keep the Chimera ant busy and out of Netero's way.

Apendnoiraud continued to close the space between them, until he finally stopped and put his hands in the side pockets of his white lab coat. Natsume was eager to see what kind of expression the ant was wearing behind his face mask. But at that point, his mask didn't even need to be removed. The Royal Guard now had this look in his previously empty and unexpressive eyes. It was a mocking, sadistic gaze, as if he was repeating what he had said before with just the use of his eyes._ 'Humans are such simple creatures.'_

_"He isn't planning on keeping us here for much longer," _Natsume concluded, as he was mentally preparing himself to use his ability at any given moment. _"His eyes, they've been shifting a lot more to Toshi. No, he was always keeping an eye on Toshi, he was just waiting for me to look away from him. He wants me to look away so he'll get a chance to attack him. I don't think he caught on yet."_

Toshiro was also starting to get suspicious after Apendnoiraud stopped walking towards them, but unlike Natsume, he wasn't too caught up in trying to read his opponents movements. He knew his partner would be too preoccupied with that, and that was one of his biggest flaws as a fighter. Natsume's concentration was unbeaten by everyone at the dojo, and he even received a couple of compliments from Sensei, who was rarely satisfied with their abilities. But Toshiro knew that once his rounded, hazel eyes were fixed on one thing, he would completely forget about everything else around him. As of now, Natsume was trying to predict the Royal Guard's next course of action. Of course, he wouldn't dare to do this if Toshiro wasn't around to keep an eye out for anything suspicious that was happening around them. So, Toshiro knew his job was to keep track of everything around them. That was also the sole reason why he was first to notice it.

_"Something's behind us!" _Toshiro immediately alarmed himself as soon as he sensed it. He couldn't turn his head to check what it was, or count how many there were, and neither could he use _En_ to identify the possible threat behind them since it would draw too much attention to himself._ "There are quite a few, and their auras feel quite similar." _He tried to take a glance of Natsume from the corner of his eye, only to see that he was still deeply engrossed by who was standing in front of them. He found himself mentally cursing at his partner, _"This isn't the right time to be oblivious to your surrounding, you idiot! Snap out of your thought bubble already!"_

Whoever was first to move a muscle will lose, but although the threat in front of them was standing still, there was another threat approaching them from behind. Toshiro was the only one aware of the full situation, and until Natsume was done, he didn't want to risk moving. But it may be too late by the time he fully understood the situation and decided to step back down on planet earth. Toshiro had no other choice, he had to join Natsume and try to run the possible scenarios through his head before taking the best course of action. First option; Natsume snaps out of it and one of them could watch the other's back while the other deals with the unknown threat. Second option; Natsume doesn't snap out of it and Toshiro takes charge of the situation. Third option; Apendnoiraud moves, and Natsume is forced to move too, allowing Toshiro to start fighting as well. To Toshiro's dismay, all options all came back to whatever Natsume. Although Natsume was currently unaware of it, he was going to be the trigger to anything that were to happen next.

Toshiro remained calm, waiting for Natsume to move. But then, he realised something. _"Wait, they aren't getting any closer to me at all." _At this point, Toshiro put up his guard to whatever was closing in on them from behind, until he realised that he wasn't their target. _"They're after Natsu!" _His eyes travelled back to Apendnoiraud. _"He's looking straight at me. He's targeting me. He was targeting me from the beginning!" _The reason behind Natsume's silence finally became clear. Natsume was only watching his back. He wanted to move out as soon as he noticed even a flinch from the Royal Guard. But by doing this, he became unable to watch his own back. Whatever was behind them was after Natsume, and he was unaware of this._ "It's a threat. If Natsu doesn't snap out of it soon, he'll be done for, but if he does, I'll become the guard's target."_

Time was starting to run out, and there was only one option left at this moment. Toshiro had to act first, Apendnoiraud wanted him to make the first move. If not, both him and Natsume would go down together. He had to be the first one to turn his back to the Royal Guard and fight the threat behind them.

_"In that case, I'm leaving my life is in your hands, Natsu." _Toshiro tightly clenched both his fists, before his whole body became engulfed in a light green aura. At the same time, both of his fists were covered in a much thicker aura that was a slightly deeper green, looking as if he was wearing a pair of green boxing gloves. It took all his courage to turn his back to the main enemy, yet, the trust he had in Natsume allowed him to do so. The enhancer immediately pounced himself on the puppet closest to Natsume. It took just a single punch for the puppet to break down into dirt and mud. _"Thank god, they are all weak!" _Not leaving Natsume's back, he continued to land one punch after the other, turning each puppet back to their original state, mud.

Natsume was still oblivious to the fact that Toshiro moved away from his side to watch his back. As soon as Toshiro activated his _Nen_ ability, Apendnoiraud raced towards him. It was only when Apendnoiraud moved towards Toshiro, who now had his back turned to him when Natsume even took the chance to blink after all this time. He still wasn't too aware of the things happening around him. Why wasn't Toshiro standing where beside him anymore? What caused him to move all of the sudden? None of these things matter at the moment, he just had to stop the Royal Guard for now.

Only a moment after Toshiro activated his _Hatsu_, Natsume did the same. However, unlike Toshiro he did not have the time to use his full potential so suddenly. Instead, he focused on only conjuring his armour on one of his arms in order to block his attack. He wasn't sure if it would be enough to block off his attack completely, but for now, this was the best he could do. The Royal Guard just threw a punch, but this was more than enough to overpower Natsume. The impact of the punch managed to break through Natsume's armour, before injuring his defenceless arm.

Natsume's eyes widened after seeing the shiny, greyish blue armour shattering into pieces like glass and crumbling onto the floor. Although the armour managed to absorb most of the impact, Natsume couldn't help but wince after hearing his bone crack. _"Damn it! I can't get distracted now!" _he cursed. In order to increase the space between him and Apendnoiraud, he aimed his already armoured leg in his directing for a kick. The Chimera ant was quick to dodge the attack with no trouble. When he fixed his eyes back at Natsume, he was suddenly taken away in a flash by Toshiro. There was no other way to leave the western tower. The pair could either go back the way they just came to the central staircase, or come back to the only stairs leading up to the palace's western tower.

"They'll be back." He muttered under his breath, before making his way to stand in front of the stairs leading up. Just like a watch dog, he didn't move from his place, waiting for the intruders to return. Similarly, the remaining mud puppets looked around the area, wanting to find the pair and eliminate them just as they've been instructed to do by their master.

While the Royal Guard was waiting for their inevitable return, Toshiro got them to a safe place for now. He let Natsume down, so he could have a moment to regain his breath. On their way, he noticed the purple bruise on Natsume's arm, instantly feeling regret seeing how he got hurt protecting him. "Natsu, thanks. I would've been a dead man if it weren't for you."

Hearing this, Natsume regained composure and got back on his feet. "Don't thank me just yet. If you're really that grateful, you can treat me to ramen once we get back to Kioto."

"Aren't you supposed to thank me, too?" Toshiro almost yelled back, surprised to see him being back to his playful self despite their current situation. "If it weren't for me, you would have been mud zombie food right now!"

"Alright, alright! Calm down, bro! Taking over my chores for a month is okay, too," he grinned back, leaving Toshiro utterly dumbfounded. "That aside, we at least know a fraction of what the guy can do."

"The puppets aren't very strong," Toshiro commented.

"Of course, they were only meant to act as bait. There was no use for them to be strong," Natsume explained, before dispelling the armour he had on his leg as well as the half broken armour on one of his arms. "I'm sure he can make stronger ones if he wanted to, and we can't ignore other potential abilities he may possess. I've got to give it to him, he packs a good punch. I didn't think my armour would be this easily broken." Though he just dispelled his armour, he decided to conjure the full armour this time. Natsume transformed into his full mecha suit which was a greyish-blue tint. The red helmet and grey covered his head, but didn't fully cover his face. Instead, only his eyes were protected by some sort of blue screen. In addition, there was a sword strapped on his back 'just incase' his bare hands weren't enough in battle. He then turned to Toshiro while in his armoured suit and gave him a big grin, along with a thumbs up, "Shall we get going then?"

Toshiro mentally face-palmed at his flashy ability. "No matter how many times you do this, I just can't get used to it. Couldn't you have thought of a... less eye catching _Hatsu_?"

"That's so rude, it took me a whole year to build this thing!" Natsume said, offended by Toshiro's statement. "Besides, I was thirteen when I made this. Cut me some slack, I was into Transformers, Code Geass and stuff like that back then."

"You still watch those shows..." Nonetheless, Toshiro just sighed before activating his own ability. Just like before, a light green aura engulfed his body before his hands were covered with a thicker, more opaque aura that resembled a pair of boxing gloves.

Seeing him ready to go into action, Natsume took the lead cracking his knuckles. "Let's kick some ass!"

"Just shut up and watch your own back this time."

Apendnoiraud and Menthuthuyoupi were preoccupied with their assigned Hunters, which only left Morel to find Shaiapouf and Gon's group to find Neferpitou. Gon's group continued making their way to the eastern tower, with Ikalgo following them a good distance behind. Upon reaching the point where they would have to separate, Gon took a sharp turn right, heading straight towards the stairs to the second floor which were now in sight. Killua who was just behind Gon was about to do the same, but after catching a glimpse of the ant soldiers from the corner of his eye, he turned and headed straight in the opposite direction. Killua was now running straight at the two Chimera ants standing in front of the elevator heading down, confused at his own actions.

Himeko was the only one out of their group to see him make such a questionable decision. For a moment, her eyes trailed off and followed Killua's distancing figure, gawking at him in surprise. She didn't ask herself why he would choose to break his own set of rules, she knew exactly why he did this. Instead, she chose to focus more on herself and the boy running in front of her who didn't bother to look back once, although he knew Killua was running in a completely different direction as them. With Killua not there, she decided to pick up her speed and close the distance between her and Gon, wanting to know just what kind of expression was written on his face.

What Killua did just know, Himeko considered a very 'Gon thing to do'. Regardless of his own situation, Gon would have always gone out of his way to help a friend in need. Although Killua did tend to watch out for others, he had always been the type to focus on his own role in a mission. Killua himself looked rather puzzled to why he suddenly decided to take the wrong turn. He picked up good habits from Gon after being around him for such a long time, but when Himeko turned to look at the expression on Gon's face, she bit her lower lip anxiously. It wasn't just that absent look in his eyes that made her turn her eyes away from him. That intense aura Gon was emitting was strong enough to just break her apart.

Gon was silent, yet his aura screamed at her._ 'Don't touch me, don't get close to me, don't even look at me.' _Although she didn't want to, her body unconsciously submitted and tried to increase the space in between them. She could just guess he was thinking something along the lines of, _'I will save Kite, even if it costs me my life,' _and although Gon didn't say anything to her or Killua before leaving Knov's dimensional space, she began to get the impression that Gon didn't give a damn about them being there to fight along side with him.

_"Is Gon's thinking of us as a nuisance?" _She wanted to profusely shake her head at that thought, but at the same time, she couldn't deny it. All this time, she only thought of Neferpitou as the potential threat in the battle. She was prepared to face the Royal Guard with no fear after getting some motivation from her mentors. But this was probably what Natsume was talking about in the first place. Some battles come with an emotional burden such as this one, and a Hunter had to repress that burden and carry on with the job. Now that she found herself in that situation, she knew it was much harder to deal with than she thought. _"Don't let it bother you," _she attempted to tell herself, but with Gon right in front of her, she couldn't help but feel more anxious the closer they got to the throne room.

Sooner or later, Gon was going to snap. She wouldn't be able to do anything about it, and not even Killua would be able to help him. Her head hung low at the thought as she continued to run.

As Killua reached the two Chimera ant soldiers, he reached his hands for his pocket to pick out a pair of yo-yo's. Using his _Nen_ at this point would catch unwanted attention, but at the same time, it would be a waste of energy. Using the yo-yo's, he aimed for both of their heads and watched the pair of ant soldiers drop dead to the ground. All this happened with little to no thought from his part, so while this was all happening, Killua's mind was clouded with confusion. He had no control over his body, and little did he want to do what he just did.

_"Why am I doing this?"_ Feeling like a hypocrite, he gritted his teeth, securely putting his yo-yo's back in his pockets. _"What have I done? I told everyone to stick to the plan, yet I'm the one who ended up not following it." _Killua's body only took a U-turn after his brain got the message that these two soldiers were confirmed dead. Killua felt as if his body was moving on his own, as if someone was moving him around against his own will. He didn't understand why a rational fighter such as himself would go out of his way to kill two unrelated enemies who posed no threat to him. Still clouded with confusion, Killua ran back hoping to catch up with Gon and Himeko soon. The two were already quite far ahead, he couldn't afford to continue stalling like this.

On his way, his eyes widened as they caught sight of Flutter's body, which he knew was controlled by Ikalgo. They ran past each other, making as little contact as possible. It was only when he ran past Ikalgo that he realised why he was acting so strangely. _"I did it out of impulse to help him,"_ he thought, slightly dumbfounded at his own actions. Despite all that, Killua felt somewhat satisfied with himself at the thought of being able to help a friend. It took him some time to realise, but his own action felt rather familiar. _"It's something Gon would do." _Feeling like he was back on track, Killua picked up his pace to catch up to the rest of his group running ahead of him.

"Thank you, Killua. I owe you one for this!" Ikalgo too, whispered a quiet thanks, only loud enough for Killua to hear before stepping into the elevator. He had no affiliation with Palm, neither has he met her before. But she was a precious friend to Killua, so he had to do his best to find her and bring her back safely. Whilst the elevator doors were closing, from the shadows another Chimera ant had just witnessed this peculiar scene. After seeing Killua run towards the elevator, the wolf-like squadron leader hid himself to observe the intruder. He watched his soldiers fall to the ground, but considering Flutter's timing, he thought he must have past the stranger on the way. Clouded with doubt, Welfin decided to keep an eye on Flutter, who he didn't know was actually Ikalgo in disguise.

As Killua was trying to catch up with the pair, Gon was the first person to eventually reach the eastern tower and look straight ahead at the throne room where the King was supposed to be. However, seeing that there was a thick layer of smoke surrounding the throne room, Gon came to the safe conclusion that the King or Neferpitou were not in there. _"That's Morel's Smokey Jail. If he set up the Smokey Jail around the throne room, he must be in there with Pouf alone. In that case, neither the King or Pitou are in there with him. In that case, where the hell are they?"_

Gon's removed his eyes from the throne room and scanned around the area for any possible signs of his target. Whilst he was doing so, Himeko who was behind him also arrived on the eastern tower, but instead of looking at the throne room, her eyes immediately spot Gon frantically searching for something. She looked up at their initial goal, seeing it surrounded by the smoke made by Morel. _"Morel-san made it out safely," _she thought, feeling somewhat relieved at that point. It was the first piece of good news since they all split up at the central staircase._ "He must be keeping Pouf in there with him, which means the King's not in there."_

Having left Gon out of her sight for just a split second, she looked back to where she last saw him, only to see that he was gone. Knowing that Gon could potentially do something they'd all end up regretting, Himeko went almost insane at the thought of her having lost sight of him. Just like a mother losing sight of her toddler in a large supermarket, she was close to having a mental breakdown. What if something were to happen to him? Not even Killua was there to stop him from doing anything stupid to himself.

It didn't take her long to find him as he hadn't gone too far on his own, but those mere moments she spent alone in that strange place were enough to make her heart stop. She took in a deep breath, and as she exhaled, her whole body trembled not wanting to imagine what could have happened. After looking at how much her hands were still shaking, she didn't want her eyes to leave Gon anymore, fearing that this might have just been dumb luck that didn't separate the two. If anything, she knew too well that Gon had no intention of waiting for her and Killua. If they were too slow, he would gladly leave them behind. Neither could she keep relying on Killua all the time. Not wanting to lose sight of him again, Himeko got closer to him, wanting to see what caught his attention.

...

A couple of minutes ago, right after Netero and Neferpitou's first encounter, the Chairman, along with Killua's grandfather headed straight towards the King's location. It was child's play for the pair. After all, Neferpitou wasn't the only one who had mastered _En_. He wasn't in the throne room as they had initially expected, and were instead lead into a room on the second floor of the central tower.

After realising that the intruders were also able to use _En_, Neferpitou scanned the palace while she was still in mid air. Unable to fly as she lacked the wings, she had to calm her nerves in order to locate the King's actual whereabouts. She too used her own _En_ to locate the King before heading in that direction, watching the palace get thorn down by the destructive power of the golden arrows. Unlike her, Shaiapouf, who was also worried sick about the King, immediately rushed to his side with no second thoughts. Whilst she headed towards the tower, he was headed towards the throne room where he assumed he would be.

Neferpitou hurried to the King's side, using her immense leg strength to push her off the ground and jump towards the palace. There was no doubt in her mind that she had to reach the King before the enemy did. That was the only thing on her mind at that given moment. But once she got close enough to feel the malicious aura coming from within, she slowed down and her mind momentarily went blank. This aura didn't come from the unusually strong humans she had just encountered, no, it came from her King. Although it was just her King's aura, the closer she got to the entrance of the tower, the more she began to regret her decision. Her pupils dilated; for the first time in her life, Neferpitou experienced fear. From the aura alone, she knew exactly what the King was thinking, but if she were to be questioned, she wouldn't know how to give him a proper answer.

Her moment of hesitation caused her to arrive seconds after Netero and Zeno. She didn't want to begin to imagine what the King's current state was, yet it was her duty to check up on him. As she entered through one of the windows, she paused midway as her King looked at her with a blank, darkened expression. That little girl whom the King spent the past couple of days playing Gungi with was unconsciously laying in his arms. By now, the room was covered in the viscous like black aura emitted by the King which pulled Neferpitou in even closer.

_"What have I done?" _she questioned herself, unable to remove her eyes from the King. She was frozen stiff and couldn't remove her gaze from him. Meruem stared back at her, looking like he expected an explanation to how such a harmless attack was able to cause such injuries to the fragile human being lying in her arms. It was as if Neferpitou expected everything to end at that moment. The King had never been this angry before, and she had a feeling that everything and everyone in the palace was going to be gone in an instant. She didn't know what it would take for the King's fury to be calmed. If the girl died right there, the King would go berserk. He would forever be second to that girl at Gungi.

Just then, Menthuthuyoupi destroyed the central staircase on the first floor, and the impact of his attack caused the King to eventually calm his own nerves. The King finally moved, picking up the frail girl in his arms. But although Meruem managed to regain his composure, the spectators held onto their breath to watch the scene in front of them unfold. This was the last thing Netero and Zeno expected to see in such a place. They chose to remain silent out of respect for the innocent bystander who got caught up in their mess, but at the same time, they respected the inhumane creature in front of them treating a human life with such tenderness and love.

"I didn't think I'd get to see something like this when you requested for my help," Zeno whispered quietly, only for Netero to hear. Netero did not answer, but he agreed with the Zoldyck. All these months, Meruem's existence was considered a threat to humanity. They continued to watch his large arms gently setting the small girl down onto the floor, before he softly wiped the blood off the corner of her lips. His actions were almost human like, it was difficult to still call him a villain to all of mankind when he treated such a weak creature with so much affection. Affection; yes, that was a trait that humans supposedly possessed. Yet, Netero and Zeno couldn't help but think of all the numerous instances throughout their lives where they had met selfish human trash who had no consideration for others around them. The King didn't have any sort of hidden agenda behind his action, he just genuinely cared for the young girl.

After setting the girl down, Meruem called out to Neferpitou who was still in daze after witnessing the King's actions. "Pitou."

The King's firm voice snapped her out of her thoughts. "Y-yes, sir," she stuttered, wondering what the King's next request might be.

The King who was knelt down in front of Komugi looked Neferpitou in the eyes before giving his next order. "Heal Komugi," he told her, knowing that at this point, Neferpitou was the only person who could fulfil his wish. "I'm counting on you."

Neferpitou finally moved from the windowsill and crouched down beside Komugi, looking at her peaceful expression. She couldn't even bring herself to say the affirmative _'yes, sir'_ again as she did before. Instead, Neferpitou was moved to tears by the King's actions and words. The frightening aura the Mereum emitted was gone, yet she felt like it would have been less surprising to see the King destroy the palace and everything around it out of pure anger. If she got caught up in it, she would hesitate to accept it as her fate and die in the hands of her King. But this sudden change in the King's demeanour, was this what Shaiapouf feared would happen if the frail, white haired girl stayed in the palace for too long?

Deep down, Neferpitou cursed at herself. She failed as a Royal Guard. The King prioritised the life of this lowly human over his own. Wasn't he just going to get rid of her sooner or later anyway? Wasn't she just a temporary chew toy that could be tossed out once he got bored of it? Then why, why did the King look so helpless when he walked over to her with the human girl in her arms? Why did he look like a little child who broke his toy and couldn't fix it, asking his parent to fix it for him instead? The thought that occurred to both Netero and Zeno before occurred to her just now. Mereum didn't want lose this girl just so he could take away her world champion title. He simply wanted to continue playing Gungi with her. He was unaware of this himself, but he sincerely enjoyed the young girl's company. He didn't just want to use her as a tool to polish his own skills, he wanted them both to improve together. But most importantly, he was captivated by how much the girl grew as a Gungi player in front of him. He wanted to continue watching her grow. For a destructive creature such as himself, he had a very innocent reason.

Chimera ants were to show no concern to mere humans, yet their King was completely entranced by a human girl.

_"Why?" _Neferpitou did not understand the reason behind her own tears. Although she was she was supposed to be disappointed in herself, the tightening feeling in her chest made her tell otherwise. She had felt disappointment before on numerous occasions when she wasn't able to fully please the King. But this feeling was different. She was almost overwhelmed with happiness after remembering the King's words. All this time, Mereum considered the Royal Guard as nuisances, trying to eventually disregard their existence completely. But that didn't bother her. After all, the King was born to rule over the world, while she was born to protect the King as his knight. She pledged loyalty to King Mereum for the rest of her life.

But now, it felt as if the King needed her help. He acknowledged her presence, he acknowledged that she was there to help him. He wanted her to help him, and unlike the numerous other times, the King sincerely requested for his knight's aid. It was something only she could do. Shaiapouf, Menthuthuyoupi and Apendnoiraud couldn't fill in for her. The King depended on her, no, he needed her. He entrusted her with an important task, and she couldn't afford to fail. She couldn't fail because this girl was important to the King.

After taking a brief look at Komugi's condition, Neferpitou finally chose to act. "Doctor Blythe," she called forth the large, eerie looking puppet to start operating on Komugi. There were hardly any visible injuries on the outside, but she knew the ariel attack must have taken a large toll on the frail girl's body.

Mereum watched the surgery proceed with his own eyes, wanting to see just how bad her injuries were. He said this time and time again, but that didn't stop him from repeating those words once more_. "What a weak little thing." _He still didn't understand what made him rush over to her side. Did he want to protect her because she was so weak? This human was nothing special. She wasn't strong, she wasn't outspoken, she wasn't good at anything other than Gungi. She was the complete opposite of him, who had limitless potential to keep learning until he became invincible. So, why did it have to be this girl?

"We will fight somewhere else," he spoke, his back still turned towards the two veterans. "It would be convenient for you, too."

"I suppose so," Netero agreed with the offer. In fact, he was slightly surprised to see the King wanting to go along with his plan so easily. After going as far as hiring professional Hunters to separate the Royal Guards from the King, he had also offered a large sum of money to Zeno to tag along and assist him in case Morel and his team weren't enough. This would just make things easier for him, so he went along with it.

"Then, let's go." The King took one last glance of Komugi, fairly confident that she will be fine once he returns. Once his intense eyes left them, Neferpitou felt a sense of relieve rush through her body. With the King right behind her, she couldn't relax incase she made a little mistake he could've noticed. But even with him gone, she couldn't afford to make any mistake. This was the first real task he had given her, she couldn't fail. Even now, Mereum was buying her time so she could fulfil her task properly and heal Komugi.

As Mereum started walking towards the exit, the two veterans waited for him to lead the way, their eyes not leaving the monstrous figure. But it wasn't until he walked straight past the two old men that they finally understood why he was overflowing with such confidence. Mereum's aura was strong enough to overwhelm even the Chairman of the Hunter Association and the elder Zoldyck. A thought finally occurred to the Netero; maybe he wasn't in control of the situation anymore. Nonetheless, the pair followed King Mereum out of the tower, leaving Neferpitou alone with Komugi.

...

Gon stood at the edge of the tower after finding a subtle clue on his target's whereabouts. After his frantic search, his eyes led him to the second floor of the central tower where he spotted one familiar figure. It had been quite a long time since he saw Chairman Netero; he couldn't recall seeing the old man after the Hunter exam that took place the previous year. His eyes then travelled to the strangers who were around Netero. One was another old man, slightly shorter than the Chairman. Based on his position alone, Gon could safely assume he was on their side. He then looked at the green Chimera ant leading the pair away from the tower.

His eyes widened as he got a taste of how powerful this being was just by looking at him. Mereum didn't even need to look back at him, his stance alone was dominating. _"So, this is the King."_

Netero on the other hand spotted the young boy who was staring back at him, as well as Himeko standing right beside him, who Gon failed to notice after having been overwhelmed by the King's aura. Out of their batch, Netero had always been curious of Gon's potential. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he was Ging's son, or maybe Gon himself really made a good impression during the Hunter exam. He didn't have any sort of direct interactions with the boy either since last year, but he was well aware of the fact that none of them were ready to fight the ants a couple of months ago. Looking at Gon now, he saw just how much he must have prepared for this. He gave him a wide grin before pointing at the tower he just exited. He was informing them that their target was in there. Neferpitou was in there.

The flame he tried to control inside of him grew bigger, realising that the monster he'd been searching for was in reach. The fire he emitted was strong enough to burn anything close to him. _"Pitou is in there,"_ he told himself, repeating it over and over again like a broken cassette tape. _"Pitou is there." _

Gon's sanity was strongly dependant on Neferpitou and the guilt he felt towards Kite. All this time he was able to come up with reasonable solution to the problems they faced, he remembered to stick directly to the plan and he led everyone to the tower. If anything, one could say that Gon was indeed a lot sharper than he usually was. But as soon as his eyes had that hollow look in them, all he could see in his mind was the fight between Kite and Neferpitou.

_"If I defeat Pitou, Pitou will heal Kite," _he told himself. _"If Pitou heals Kite, everything will be fine again."_

It was a conclusion he drew by himself, not being able to process any other turnouts. In his mind, he was certain that the Royal Guard's defeat would equal Kite's return. The possibility that Kite might never be saved didn't occur to him. He completely blocked that thought out of his mind.

Although she was previously absorbed by the King's presence, the aura Gon emitted brought her attention back onto him. It was almost as frightening to look at Gon as it was to look at Mereum. She could guess the things running through his mind and couldn't help but feel troubled. That absent look on Gon's face; it almost looked as if her friend was possessed by the devil himself now that he found Neferpitou. That vacant expression didn't fit right on Gon's face, so why did he keep making it?

_"If we go in there, we might not be able to come back alive." _She finally understood the true meaning behind Natsume's words after looking at her friend. She gulped hard at the thought, _"So, this is what real Hunters do for a living. What idiots, throwing their lives away like it's nothing! How did I end up becoming one of those idiots?" _Even though her brain was warning her of all the possible dangers of this place, she knew her legs would still end up blindly following Gon._ "Maybe there is an afterlife after all. Maybe it's a much happier place than this, maybe we'll all be better off over there. Father, mother, grandmother, grandfather, I might be able to see them again. We won't need to do any senseless fighting, we'll finally be at peace." _Her lips began to quiver as she convinced herself that death may not be as bad as people made it out to be. With that thought alone, Himeko knew that she had finally reached rock bottom.

As her vision started to blur, she looked up in an attempt to stop herself from crying in a place like that. She told herself to repress any sort of emotions until they were done with the mission, but it was much harder than she imagined. Knowing that she would have to move in to fight soon, she proceeded to quickly dry her tears before they could fall down her cheek.

_"Even if I don't go with him, Gon is determined to go either way. Even if Killua and I were to turn around here, Gon will still go." _That much was already clear, Gon didn't mind if she were to turn around and go back to Knov's dimensional space right then and there. After all, his aura told her specifically to back off if she didn't have the same determination as him to proceed. Despite the fiery aura surrounding the him, Himeko gathered the courage to put her shaking hand in his, before tightly squeezing it. She made up her mind, and this was her way of letting Gon know the answer. _"If Killua and I go with him, then maybe we'll be fine."_

Gon's heart was numb. Despite her squeezing his hand in an attempt to calm him down, he did not do the same. Her hands were warm from all the running around, but he could not feel the warmth against his icy hands. There was a wall around him which he used to isolate himself from the rest of the world. Himeko knew this, but she didn't let go. In the end, it didn't take too long for him to return to his senses. Himeko could sense the cloud around him disappear, and eventually, Gon was able to feel a smaller hand holding his own. Before she could let go, he slipped his hand out of hers. If that was her answer, it was fine. It was his way of letting her know that he got her message.

The pair continued to look at Meruem and the two elders, who had now stopped walking and were in a deep discussion. Just then, Killua finally arrived on the second and searched the area for his two friends. They didn't get too far, so he was somewhat relieved, but noticing that the pair was looking straight ahead at something while standing side by side, Killua couldn't help but grow curious. He quickly ran to Gon's side, following his gaze to look at whatever they were looking at.

In the distance, the first person he spotted was his grandfather, Zeno. _"Grandpa..." _Although he already knew his grandfather was at the scene with Netero, he was still surprised to see the elder in wanted to know what kind of relationship his grandfather had with Chairman Netero, but this wasn't the right time to think about that. After spotting Netero, his eyes moved to the only unfamiliar figure standing in their little circle. _"That must be the King!"_

After a couple of exchanges, Zeno was first to make a move. He prepared to summon a golden dragon, the same one he used to fly to the palace, so Netero and Mereum could leave and find a better place to begin their battle. Despite this, Mereum's back was still facing his opponents, fearless of whatever attack Zeno might be preparing for. He didn't need to do anything, the attack posed no threat to him whatsoever. Mereum knew this before Zeno even launched the actual attack.

_"He's quite frightening,"_ Netero admitted, seeing how composed he looked. _"He knew from the start that Zeno's attack wasn't meant to hurt him. He'll be a tough one to handle."_

Once Zeno finished creating the dragon, it flew off into the distance, carrying both Netero and Mereum with it. Zeno remained behind, his eyes following the glowing dragon until it finally disappeared into the night sky. But although his job was done, Zeno remained where he was, knowing that his grandchild was standing on the tower to his left. He chose to wait for him and his friends before leaving. Even if Killua decided to cut ties with his household, that didn't change the fact that he was still his grandson. _"What a strange place this is to reunite with him. Who would have expected this?"_

With Netero and Mereum gone, Gon used this as a cue to go into battle. Although he hasn't uttered a single word since the mission started, Gon used this as an opportunity to let his friends know that for him, there was no going back.

"Kou, Killua. Pitou is in that tower," he informed them, knowing Killua was last to arrive out of the three. Killua turned to look at the tower in front of him, before turning his attention back on Gon who was now ready to leave. "I'm going in."

Gon was the first person to jump across to the central tower, and Killua's eyes did not leave him for even a second. He snapped out of it when he felt a gentle pat on his back. Himeko gave him a firm nod, letting him know that she had finally made up her mind for good. He looked at her with a weak, helpless expression he didn't want anyone to see. Surprisingly, she returned a weak smile. She didn't look as confused as him, so it made him wonder whether she understood Gon. Why did she look so happy to follow Gon? Did she disregard her own emotions to go forth with this? Why couldn't he do the same, why didn't he want to understand Gon? It wasn't too long before she followed Gon across the gap.

Conflicted by his best friend's choice of words, Killua remained behind as he watched the distance between them getting bigger, unable to reach out to them.

* * *

**A/n-** Advice to fellow writers. If you edit your chapters on docs, make sure to copy your progress before saving. The site crashed on me, so I had to spend 4 hours rewriting everything I lost right now... But I'm glad it crashed because this version is much better than the earlier version of the chapter lol.

Apologies for not updating so frequently. I told myself that I'd finish this fanfic by the end of this year when the year started, but ironically I updated less this year than I did last year. After exams were over I wanted to do my best to update during the summer holidays, but I only managed to update once or twice. I've written nearly half of this chapter during the summer, but then I started focusing on my med school application and before I knew it, the summer was over. Well, good news. I sent the application off last week, so I can't use university application as an excuse anymore next time. Well, that was just a little life update from me, so I'd like to thank all the readers for patiently waiting for this update!

Also, a little heads up. The next few chapters are going to take some more time to write with the plot being all over the place at this point. Please bear with me!

**Review Corner:**

**Strike Faster than Starlight****-** Hey! It's good to see you back as well ^^ Gon vs. Pitou will be on hold for a while, but their meeting will be in the next chapter!

**SilverDewDrop-** I'm honestly not smart either tbh, I hardly study for exams so I usually only get B's and borderline A's if I'm lucky. The only reason I got all A's for my summer exams was because my bf decided to drag me the library every weekend to keep an eye on me so I don't procrastinate, haha. I guess hard work pays off after all! And yeah, I'm planning on becoming a psychiatrist in the future, but you might have guessed it by now by picking out some elements I decided to add to the plot.

And if either you or your partner have plastic surgery, your offspring will still inherit your original features. Plastic surgery only changes your physical features, it has nothing to do with your genome. Designer babies is much closer to what you're talking about. You can basically choose the baby's features before it's born, so if you want it to have blue eyes, you can change it's DNA so it expresses blue eyes. Of course this isn't ethically approved, so although it's possible to do this, I'm not actually sure whether there are places in the world that do this. Scientists do want to try this out however because it could prevent offsprings from inheriting genetic diseases such as sickle cell anaemia, cystic fibrosis etc. I shall end our science lesson here for today!

Gon is smooth like butter! :D And I like how you were trying to justify Himeko being useless lol. Don't worry, I know she's useless. It's easier to start with a blank canvas when it comes to character development. I don't want to start off with her knowing everything and learning nothing throughout the plot.

**Melissa the kawaii yandere-** Well, there has to be at least one person to tease him throughout the story, and Natsume just happens to fit in that category ^^

**Jana shorbaji****-** Hey ^^ I should thank you for getting through this fanfic and leaving a review. I don't really think my portrayal of Killua is really that good, especially when trying to imagine what he'd be like around his crush. I had many options to choose on how I could have gone around this, but I just chose the option that appealed to me the most. I did doubt myself first because of how confident Killua is as a person, but I also had to keep in mind that he never really interacted with many girls before. Speaking of the anime Killua, I'm not sure if you've seen the 1999 version of hxh, but I actually try to base his attitude on that. I don't dislike the new version, but I feel like the older version did a much better job at portraying the characters. Maybe it's because of the crappy animation, but you don't even need to know nen to sense that Killua and Kurapika in that version aren't to be messed with. Idk, they just had this aura around them that reminded me of what they're actually capable of doing.

Also, thanks for pointing out the thing about Gon. I feel like I would have never realised it if you hadn't pointed it out, plus you mentioned it when I was still in the middle of re-editing the chapters. I'll look out for it in the previous chapters when editing them and I'll also try to keep it in mind when writing future chapters.

To answer your last question, I'm planning on continuing the fic after the chairman election arc. Togashi's always coming on and off his hiatuses, and since I doubt many people have started reading the manga from where the anime left off, I've decided to create my own arcs. Honestly, I have no idea where Togashi's trying to go with the Dark Continent arc, and somethings I wonder if he knows where he's headed with the plot too. There'll be no Dark Continent, but I'll can guarantee you that it'll be action packed (according to the data that's in my brain atm). By then, for those of you who are fairly annoyed by Himeko right now, I'm sure you'll be a little less annoyed. Either way, I'll properly announce the sequel on the last chapter of this fanfic and that will explain everything a bit better.

**Guest-** Hi! Thanks for your kind words, and thank you for worrying about my old laptop. I had to get a new one so my old one's laying dead in my brother's room because apparently he wants to 'fix it'. It just needs a screen replacement, but he's having a hard time searching for cheap screens. The screen replacement costed around £600, so my parents just got me a new laptop. Either way, let's hope my old one survives and works again soon.

And as of now, I'm not really planning on writing any new fanfics. It took me quite long to update this one, so I'd rather focus on one than be all over the place. I do want to write a One Piece fanfic in the future, so any Trafalgar Law fans out there, keep your eyes peeled. Not sure if you're a fan of OP but if you are then, this might answer your question ^^

**Guest (number 2)- **Hey, I'd like to point out how bluntly honest you are. The stalking comment honestly made me laugh. And yeah, I've got a funny story with MM. It was actually my friend who tried to convince me to start playing for months, and I didn't because I've never really played dating games before and i thought they'd be really cheesy... So yeah, she gave up for a while and then started bugging me again telling me how I'm scarily similar to Seven. (even his baptismal name turned out to be similar to my own name). So she sent me a couple of screenshots from chats and then at some point I gave in and downloaded the game.

Seven ended up being my favourite at the start of the game and though I've finished Yoosung, Seven and Zen's routes, he's still my fave. We're currently engaged and saving up enough for our space station wedding lol. I'm playing through the deep route again trying to get Jumin, but I can't help but flirt with Seven. The struggle is real! (insert multiple exclamation marks to emphasise my struggle) Oh, but Jumin's hot too!


	61. Disconnected

**Hunter x Hime: Chapter 61**

_Disconnected_

...

Gon was the first to cross the gap to the central building, where King Mereum and Chairman Netero were standing not too long ago. The only man left standing was Killua's grandfather, Zeno, who just finished seeing the pair off and was done with his share of work assigned to him by Netero. Of course, he was free to leave at any moment, but he chose to stay behind. With his grandson involved in this mission, he felt the duty as his grandfather to give the young boy and his friends a little piece of advice. Well, at first Zeno considered this as his so called "responsibility" to watch out for him. But he was also wise enough to understand that there was more than just his seniority that led him to stay behind. Undoubtedly, it was affection. Killua had excelled in pretty much everything since he was a child, and this led him to become both his parents' favourite. He was different from his siblings. There was a reason why Illumi was so set on chasing his younger brother to the end of the world, knowing how capable he was. This was also the same reason why Silva saw potential in him becoming the next heir to the family business, and also the reason why Kikiyo spoiled the boy and still babied him at such an age. In fact, even Milluki who didn't get along with Killua, knew that he was most suited to be the next generation heir. Everyone thought this, everyone but Killua. He ran away because they had such high expectations. Expectations he never wanted to meet. Nonetheless, apart from Illumi who primarily wanted Killua's abilities for himself, the rest of the Zoldycks decided to trust Killua's natural instincts and wait. They trusted Killua to come back home sooner or later.

Of course, whilst Zeno was waiting for the rest to make it over to the other side, Killua's eyes could only follow Gon as he leapt across the gap, until he felt a hand on his shoulder. After giving him a firm nod and a wry smile, Himeko followed Gon, leaving Killua behind. Killua couldn't move, he just watched. He could only watch. There was something very unsettling about Gon's words.

_"I'm heading in."_

He was letting them know he was leaving, but he wasn't expecting them to go along with him. Gon sounded determined, but though he had made so many friends on his journey, he sounded lonely. Gon had lost his bright aura quite long ago, and everyone was able to notice this change. He lost his radiance, his innocence. He lost everything that made him Gon, and the person Himeko was following was just his empty vessel. But what was most unnerving was how Gon's empty shell could just keep moving, feigning ignorance at the way he was changing.

Gon didn't seem to care about what he was becoming. He wasn't planning on going back home. He sealed his own fate.

Seeing how Himeko was following him without a word of objection confused Killua. Analysing what those three words meant was something pretty much anyone was capable of, so why wasn't she like him? Why was she going along with him as if everything were just fine? Why wasn't she showing any signs of concern? Rather than being confused at her actions, he was more confused at his own. Why was he the only one of the two swallowing hard after hearing Gon's words? Why was he knitting his brows, biting his bottom lip, clenching his fists?

Yes, he was angry at Gon for acting so selfishly, but at the same time, he was angry at himself for refusing to understand. It led him to ask the question, _"Why?" _something he wanted to ask Gon out loud, but couldn't because he was too scared to hear the obvious answer to his question. In the end, Killua decided to push himself off the edge of the building, to close the gap between him and the other two. The moment of hesitation he had just now was something he couldn't afford in the future. He swore to protect Gon, it was something he told himself after losing that match with Shoot a month ago. Biscuit told him that his hesitation could cost Gon, and all his friends in general their lives. He knew all that was caused by Illumi, but he didn't want to use that as an excuse. In the end, it took him months to find Illumi's needle stuck in his forehead, so in a way, he thought Biscuit was right. He wasn't worthy to protect Gon, but he still wanted to watch after him until the end of this mission, therefore he couldn't afford to sidetrack anymore.

Once they've all crossed over to the central building, Zeno was already waiting for them, his back turned towards them. Of course, as he was still there, Gon, Killua and Himeko naturally assumed that he had something to say to them before leaving. So, they decided to stand behind him, waiting for him to break the silence. As expected, Zeno turned around and slowly scanned their faces, his eyes travelling from Himeko, to Gon and finally landing on his own grandson. Having met a pair of indifferent eyes, followed by a pair of impatient eyes, he was surprised to see the softest expression coming from Killua.

_"He has changed."_

The change was bound to happen sooner or later, but Zeno was slightly taken back to see his grandson being the only one out of the trio wearing such a helpless expression. It was written all over his face. There were a lot of unanswered questions on his mind, and he was about to head into an uncertain future. But Zeno couldn't do much about it. It was Killua's choice to leave the Zoldyck estate behind, and it was also his choice to partake in this mission. Killua was mature for his age, but he still had a lot to learn. However, Killua was also old enough to know how much to put on his own plate.

Zeno wasn't interested at first, but seeing the stark contrast in their aura's piqued his interest. He had never met Gon in person before, but he heard quite a few things about him at his estate. The word spread quite quickly after Gon and the others came to 'rescue' Killua. Gon left quite a big impression on the estate butlers, and even Kikiyo and Silva spoke of him, although Kikiyo hardly had any good things to say. "Eccentric" was the word they often used to describe the boy, but Zeno was aware that this wasn't the eccentric they were talking about. The Gon they spoke of back then gave Killua that final push he needed to follow his own dreams, though all Killua did so far was follow Gon in the hopes of finding his own dream. But then again, the only thing Killua ever wanted as a friend; an equal. He had a taste of it during the Hunter exam, but knew his dream was short-lived after Illumi appeared to drag him back home. Gon fulfilled his dream by appearing at the Zoldyck estate a few days later, bringing along three more people whom Killua honestly never expected to tag along. Zeno understood that whilst Killua's always lurked around in the shadows, Gon was the centre of attention, able to draw others out from the shadows and keep them by his side. But now that both Killua and Himeko were dragged out into the light, Gon found himself stuck in the darkness. A darkness both the young girl and boy struggled to save his friend from.

"It's been a while!" Zeno finally broke the silence, still staring solely at Killua. He had quite a few answers that may, or may not aid the trio, but before revealing anything unnecessary, Zeno remained silent. From here onwards, things could go either way. His words could clear some things up, but they could also make matters worse. But at this point, was an explanation even needed? Killua, Gon, Himeko, those three were in charge of just one thing. What happened before their arrival was nothing that should matter to them as Hunters. Not even he fully understood the relationship between the King, Neferpitou and Komugi, so he too had to draw his own conclusion to the situation.

In the end, Zeno swallowed his words and turned around, slowly walking towards the edge of the tower. "I know nothing beyond what I was required to know for my own role, so I'm leaving since my job here is done." Zeno took the opportunity to look back at the trio once again, knowing too well that there is a chance that not all three will be able to return home alive. "I'll leave whatever is happening inside up to your interpretation." Saying his final words, Zeno disappeared into the darkness.

With Zeno gone, Gon was the first person to turn around and head inside the building without another word. Himeko followed, whereas Killua took another moment to glance in the direction his grandfather just left. Killua knew he was waiting for them to cross over so he could tell them something, but in the end, Zeno just left with a vague answer. The situation inside was open to their own interpretation; what did he mean by that? Nonetheless, Killua chose to keep his grandfather's words in mind and follow Gon inside the tower.

Meanwhile, Ikalgo headed straight for the elevator leading to the underground level after thanking Killua. Unfortunately for him, Welfin, the wolf-like chimera ant saw Killua singlehandedly taking care of the two ant soldiers, followed by Ikalgo in Flutter's disguise appearing shortly after. Although Welfin was too far away to see any sorts of interactions between the two, the gap between the time of Killua's disappearance and "Flutter's" appearance was too short for them to have missed each other. No, they must have definitely ran past each other, and "Flutter" definitely would have been too weak to fight Killua one-on-one. A number of scenarios ran through Welfin's mind, including the possibilities of Flutter not actually being Flutter, or Flutter having joined the enemies side, making him a traitor. Being spotted by any Chimera ant would be bad luck, but unlucky Ikalgo just had to be spotted by Welfin, the most doubting ant of them all. If anything, Welfin decided to keep an eye on "Flutter".

Upon arriving at the elevator, Ikalgo pressed the button to go down, completely unaware of Welfin's watchful eye. The corridor with the elevator had a servant quarter on either end, and Ikalgo's attention was drawn to both doors when they were opened simultaneously. He could only hope for a weaker ant soldier to make their way out, and cautiously watched the first person exit the servant quarter on the right end of the corridor. It was Cheetu, a rather mischievous Chimera ant. Despite his playful personality, it didn't change the fact that he was pretty strong, ranking him as one of the squadron leaders. Ikalgo wouldn't be able to put up a fight against him even if he wanted to.

He slowly shifted his eyes to the other side, making eye contact with another Chimera ant. _"Bravoda." _A humanoid lobster with a blue shell, and to Ikalgo's dismay, he was another squadron leader. Both squadron leaders were sharp, so Ikalgo wasted no time to put his guard up. But he was still unaware of the pair of eyes still watching him from the corner of the corridor.

In the throne room, Shaiapouf arrived to the room being in utmost chaos. In the very centre of the room was the King's Gungi board broken in half but the sudden blast. Worst of all, there were no signs of the King's presence. Shaiapouf continued to stare at the broken game board, confused on what to do next. He was seconds too late, and now the enemy had already got to him.

_"Did Pitou make it in time?" _He wondered, but he stopped his thoughts there. Whether Neferpitou made it or not wasn't the issue here. In the end, he wasn't able to make it in time. His tardiness put the King's life at risk. "I'm a failure," he muttered to himself, before tears gathered in his eyes. The scene turned melodramatic the next moment, with Shaiapouf continuing to throw jabs at himself, calling himself useless and a failure as a Royal Guard. If the King were to die, there would really be no use to his existence anymore. After all, Shaiapouf devoted his sole existence to serve the King.

But he was soon able to stop his own tears, as his emotions took a complete 180 degree turn. His own tears turned into hatred towards the woman who changed the King. Komugi, whom he considered as nothing but a nuisance, shouldn't even breathe the same air as the King. The same kind of rage at the King, for not understanding that a lowly human shouldn't stand next to him. And that very rage directed at himself, who let it come this far.

"If only I had gotten rid of that girl when I still had the chance to," he was drowning in his own tears just at the thought of the King's miserable fate.

But Shaiapouf understood it was too late for that. The King banished the Royal Guards from the second floor to spend time alone with Komugi. He prioritised her presence over his own safety. It wasn't that Shaiapouf didn't know the King's location. He knew exactly where the King was, and whom he was with, yet just didn't want to believe it was true. This reason alone caused him to miss the King timing. In the end, Shaiapouf wiped his tears away, determined to find the Mereum and ensure that he wasn't in any sort of danger. He knew the palace had been infiltrated by humans, and that there were Hunters after the King's life. The only presence he was able to sense were the presence of Netero and Zeno, but that didn't mean that there weren't others around who could pose a threat.

Though he knew the enemy's main objective was the King's head, Shaiapouf failed to comprehend that majority of the infiltrators weren't after the King, but the Royal Guards. It could have just been his extreme devotion to Mereum that prevented him from thinking outside the box and consider himself as a possible target, but it was too late before he could even realise. As soon as he managed to snap out of his dramatic monologue, he found himself surrounded by thick, heavy fog he didn't recall seeing there before. Shaiapouf looked around, trying to identify the possible cause for the sudden change in surrounding, only to see one of the infiltrators standing in the fog. It was a built man, holding a large smoke pipe. It was Morel.

"Yo!" Morel greeted him with a large grin on his face. In contrast to the exhausted look in Shaiapouf's puffy eyes from all the crying, Morel seemed to have some excitement in his. He managed to successfully trap the Chimera ant within his _Smokey Jail_, ensuring that no one from outside can interrupt them. Their infiltration plan had a few down's already, with the unexpected arrangement of the Royal Guards being randomly scattered around the palace, but despite all that, Morel knew the plan was back on track.

However, despite Morel's entry, Shaiapouf paid no attention to him, completely ignoring the built man in front of him and flying off, trying to cross the smoke to get to the other side. This wasn't the time to be dealing with intruders, he had to ensure that the King was safe and sound. There were only three other ants aside from him who could protect the King, but who knew where they were. Even if all three of them were by the King's side, Shaiapouf felt the duty to stay by Mereum too.

Morel knew that Shaiapouf's priority was to hurry to Mereum's side as soon as possible, therefore he understood why Shaiapouf paid no mind to him. He wasn't just simply being ignored, his enemy didn't even acknowledge his presence. But after a couple of times of failing to get out of the _Smokey Jail_, Morel knew the Royal Guard had to turn around and confront him.

"There is no point in trying, I have you trapped in here." Morel informed him, and the Chimera ant stopped trying just as he predicted.

"I see," Shaiapouf muttered, as he wiped his runny nose and tears away with the back of his hand. "What do I have to do for you to let me through?" He wasn't interested in negotiating with the enemy, but there was no other choice for him. The man standing behind him with the pipe clearly had the upper hand at the moment, and Shaiapouf didn't want to waste any more precious time. Even a millisecond was precious, and rushing to the King's side was the only thing on his mind. He would do anything to get to Mereum's side as soon as he possibly could.

To this, Morel could only snicker. "But I'm not planning on letting you out."

Talking wasn't going to get him out of there, he had to force his way past Morel. Shaiapouf turned around, so he was no facing his enemy. His expression didn't change, and he still had those empty, exhausted eyes looking at his enemy. Slowly but steadily, he made his way down until his feet finally touched the ground. Morel watched carefully, knowing he could attack at any given moment. However, Shaiapouf stayed still, just flapping his bright, flamboyant butterfly wings.

"_Spiritual Message_," Shaiapouf continued, and as his wings continued to flutter, some sort of scales began filling their surrounding.

Near the now broken central staircase, Knuckle and Meleoron, whom Knuckle is still carrying on his shoulder are watching over Menthuthuyoupi's battle with Shoot. The injured Shoot was still skilfully balancing on one of his floating fists while dodging Menthuthuyoupi's attacks, trying to buy his comrades time. With Meleoron holding his breath, the pair still remained invisible on the sidelines, watching Shoot singlehandedly trying to keep the Royal Guard preoccupied. However, seeing how terribly injured Shoot was, it started to become much harder for Knuckle and Meleoron to just keep on watching. Shoot's injuries weren't life-threatening at that point, but having to move at such a high speed using a technique he just thought of completely out of the blue must have been tiring. He could go on for a while, but he couldn't continue doing this for the rest of the mission. The pair in the audience knew that, and if Shoot were to get more injuries, his rapid movements would lead him to lose more blood, which could put him in a much tighter spot.

But as time went by, it started to become much harder for Shoot to keep up with Menthuthuyoupi, who wasn't even breaking a sweat yet. The Royal guard powered-up twice already, and he knew this was still only a fraction of his limitless strength. But no matter what were to happen, Shoot had to keep his enemy preoccupied, so everyone else could successfully do their part of the mission without interruptions. Shoot was so determined, his attacks became more reckless. Although his moves were fluid, it didn't stop him from getting hit by the Chimera ant. Without any regards for his own life, Shoot only managed to touch Menthuthuyoupi's shoulder, getting hit by his tendrils in the process.

Shoot's attack caused virtually no physical damage to his opponent, yet he felt enraged to have been attacked by the infiltrator. All he was trying to do was to stop the human from being able to move any further inside the palace, but it took longer than he expected. Shoot was clinging onto his life despite all the scratches and bruises on his body, and Menthuthuyoupi was starting to run out of patience. Despite their difference in abilities, they both were equally as determined as the other person. Both fighters didn't want to let the other near the King. They shared the same objective.

Knuckle began clenching his fists as he waited for time to pass. Watching his partner enduring so much pain was becoming unbearably difficult to watch. But, Knuckle knew that rushing in now would only spoil their plan. Shoot worked so hard for this, he endured so much already. If he were to interrupt, every injury Shoot endured until now would have been for nothing. However, his eyes then travelled to the APR mascot that was still invisible thanks to Meleoron's ability and floating around near Menthuthuyoupi. Interest was added, but the number was still only three digits. It made Knuckle realise something; only ten seconds had gone by since the last time the number increased. Knowing this, it became much harder to just wait around.

_"Hold it in," _he began chanting in his head, hoping that this could snap him out of his urge to just go on a sudden rampage just to help his friend. _"Hold it in, hold it in." _But this proved to be much harder than anticipated. He gritted his teeth, hoping it would withhold his emotions, but it was a futile attempt. Tears began to flood his cheeks as he continued to watch more of Shoot's blood splatter onto the floor. Eventually, he couldn't stop himself anymore.

Knuckle ran towards the enemy at full speed, wanting to pack in a punch to help his partner. But before he could do anything to his opponent, Meleoron who was now starting to struggle to hold his breath gave him his first signal by tapping his back. The tap proved to aid Knuckle in snapping out of his temporary fit of anger, making him stop running completely. They haven't even been at the palace for a minute yet, and Meleoron needed his first breathing break. The moment Knuckle stopped paying attention to his opponent, one of Menthuthuyoupi's tendrils lightly grazed his cheek. It was just a scratch, something that barely caused him any damage, and something that Menthuthuyoupi didn't even notice hitting. But when Knuckle looked back at the APR mascot, the injury was capable of halving the number on the display, lowering it to 322. This was more than enough for Knuckle to understand what kind of tremendous powers his opponent posed. He planned on using the APR mascot to keep increasing the APR debt until Menthuthuyoupi became bankrupt, which would inhibit him from using his _Nen_ for a month. But with the strength of his opponent, that could take forever, and Shoot was already doing his best.

_"Shoot's risking his life whilst being injured, but I don't even have a scratch and I'm messing up." _Once realisation hit him, Knuckle was forced to retreat, knowing that his priority for now was to stay hidden with Meleoron. He backed away, increasing his distance between himself and the battlefield, then hiding himself behind one of the large pillars. "It wouldn't even take a second for Youpi to notice the APR, but we don't have any other option. Meleoron, you can take a deep breath here."

With Knuckle's order, Meleoron gasped for air, undoing his _God's Accomplice _ability. But just as anticipated, it took no time for Menthuthuyoupi to notice the little mascot floating in the air next to him. He watched it carefully, trying to figure out when it got there, and how he never noticed it up until now. If anything, he would have noticed it approaching him, but he didn't. It just appeared out of nowhere. Thinking back, he remembered the time he was suddenly hit in the abdominal area by an invisible force and began to wonder whether that could have been the source. There was a number displayed on it's forehead, which Menthuthuyoupi thought about too. It couldn't be a bomb or a countdown since the digits didn't seem to increase or decrease. With the mascot still floating by his shoulder unharmed, Menthuthuyoupi could only think of one solution.

_"I just have to get rid of the source," _he thought. With Knuckle having been invisible all this time, Menthuthuyoupi could only assume that this strange ability belonged to Shoot, who he was fighting against. Suddenly, he stopped with his attacks and retracted all his tendrils, before turning his back towards Shoot. Shoot looked slightly taken back by this, and continued to keep a close eye on what he was doing. If anything, Menthuthuyoupi could plan to end everything right then and there.

Just as he anticipated, his opponent shot out sharp needles towards him. The needles were approaching him at high speed, and all Shoot could do was watch helplessly, knowing that him simply moving backwards to dodge wasn't going to help him.

Menthuthuyoupi smirked in satisfaction whilst looking back over his shoulder and seeing the helpless Shoot. _"That should finish him off for good." _But Menthuthuyoupi wiped that smile off his face immediately after seeing Shoot hit himself with two of his floating fists to quickly avoid his attack. Shoot was obviously much weaker than his opponent, and both parties knew this. But seeing how Shoot was still fighting, Menthuthuyoupi also came to realise that Shoot wasn't planning on stopping. The only way to stop him was to end his life for good. Understanding this, Menthuthuyoupi chased after Shoot, wanting to put an end to this fight.

_"I can keep going!"_ Shoot on the other hand tried his best to encourage himself to continue. He knew he was singlehandedly against a Royal Guard, and he also knew that defeating the Royal Guard at his current state was impossible. The only thing he could do was buy time for the others. But at the same time, he knew that he wasn't able to go on for much longer despite his struggle to do so.

"Hey, Youpi!" Suddenly, a voice echoed through the entire hall, halting the chase between Menthuthuyoupi and Shoot. Both pairs of eyes travelled the owner of the voice, and they saw Knuckle standing there, obviously trying to draw attention to himself. It seemed to have worked, as Menthuthuyoupi completely fixed his attention towards him. Knuckle knew that originally their plan involved him staying hidden for much longer, so him showing himself would completely foil the plan. It showed Menthuthuyoupi that there was another opponent for him to take care of, but at the same time, it was the only way to save Shoot. Determined to protect his partner, Knuckle decided to finally join in the battle. With Knuckle gone, Meleoron could only hide behind the pillar, hoping for the best.

In the throne room, trapped inside Morel's _Smokey Jail_, Morel and Shaiapouf were still facing each other without attacking. Morel just continued to watch Shaiapouf flutter his wings and the scales spread through the air. After remembering what Knov said about the Royal Guard's ability, Morel took caution in inhaling too much of the scales spreading through the air, knowing that a similar ability was used to hypnotised the citizens of Peijing.

Shaiapouf on the other hand had no intentions of hypnotising his opponent. Instead, his ability was supposed to help him unmask Morel's state of mind. His exterior was completely calm and composed, but it didn't take long for Shaiapouf to uncover that Morel didn't just look confident, he was confident. After having rated his cautiousness, strength of his resolve and confidence, Shaiapouf managed to label him as an opponent with a very strong personality; someone whom it would take longer to defeat.

"This might take a while, so I should at least introduce myself." Shaiapouf decided to start small talk. "I'm one of the King's Royal Guard's, my name is Shaiapouf." He finished his introduction by slightly bowing his head to look natural, before he proceeded to read Morel's state of mind once again. The sudden introduction caused Morel to put up his guard, and although physically you wouldn't be able to see a change, Shaiapouf could sense his level of cautiousness increase. "If you are being cautious about my scales, then I'll inform you that you're mistaken. They will not cause you any harm." Morel still remained quiet, and a wry smile appeared on Shaiapouf's face. "I'll need you to wait for a moment." He informed him, before his wings grew larger in size, before enveloping Shaiapouf into a cocoon as he maniacally laughed.

Seeing this, a smile formed on Morel's face too. _"I'm here to waste his time anyway, so if he's willing to help me, I see no problem in him doing so." _Thus, Morel decided to wait for Shaiapouf to transform and come out of his cocoon. Whatever beast he may transform into, Morel was set keeping him inside his _Smokey Jail._

In front of the elevator on his way underground, Ikalgo in disguise as Flutter was stopped by both Cheetu and Brovoda, who came out of the servant quarters on either ends of the hallways. Welfin, who was suspicious of "Flutter" having some sort of destructive plan given to him by his squadron leader Leol also kept watch of the situation from afar. Other than Ikalgo who was involved in the infiltration plan, none of the other Chimera ants were aware of the commotion happening around the palace. At least not until they heard the ceiling rumble.

"Is something going on outside?" Cheetu questioned his fellow ants, hoping they had an idea of why there was a large hole in the ceiling.

Now that Cheetu brought it up, Brovoda also decided to ask something that had been on his mind for some time. "I can't sense Pitou-dono's _Nen_ either. Did something happen while you were here?"

"I'm not entirely sure either," Ikalgo answered. The last thing he wanted is to make the two squadron leaders suspicious. "I just got here too." The safest option was to pretend to not know of the Royal Guards being confronted by Hunters. Hearing his answer, Cheetu looked up, trying to figure out what was going on as even Neferpitou stopped using her _En_, which she rarely did. Brovoda's eyes on the other hand remained on Ikalgo in Flutter's disguise, until his eyes caught something worth questioning.

"What happened to your wings?" He questioned, pointing out the broken wings.

"Oh, I lost them during the attack earlier."

"Are you planning on going underground?" Cheetu asked, seeing how he was standing in front of the elevator.

"Yeah, I got orders from Hagya-sama."

"Do we have to do something too?" Cheetu asked his fellow squadron leader this time. "I mean, the enemy managed to attack after all."

"We weren't given orders to defend the palace though," Brovoda pointed out, which only disappointed Cheetu who was hoping to have some fun. Their conversation was interrupted again, this time by a much louder rumbling sound which shook the floor. The trio looked up and saw Zeno's golden _Nen _dragon flying past through the cracks in the broken ceiling. Cheetu's eyes immediately grew wide in excitement. He finally found himself something new to play with.

"That looks fun!" He exclaimed, before dashing off to wherever the golden chinese dragon was heading off to. "I'm going to try out my new technique."

"Be careful!" Brovoda called out, before turning to "Flutter". "I should go out and check out what's going on too."

"Then, I'll be going." Ikalgo told. The door opened, and Brovoda watched him get on and waited for the door to close. Ikalgo, despite being closely watched by Brovoda tried to keep calm and look as natural as he could. But as the door closed, the squadron leader, as well as Welfin watching from afar realised something that didn't add up.

_"Hagya-sama?" _The two squadron leaders thought as they recalled "Flutter's" words. Hagya was another squadron leader, but Flutter wasn't in Hagya's squad. He was in Leol's squad, so if anything, he would be taking orders from him, not Hagya. Unfortunately, Ikalgo hadn't noticed his own mistake and continued to travel down the elevator, unaware of raising the suspicion of two squadron leaders.

Once Ikalgo reached the bottom floor, he stepped out of the elevator and used Flutter's _Satellite Dragonflies _to search the area for Palm. He had never met Palm before, but he heard a couple of crazy stories about her from everyone. Despite her questionable actions, one thing was for sure. Ikalgo knew that everyone treasured her as a dear friend. She was only a friend of a friend, yet he considered her a friend of his. Therefore, he planned on staying at the palace until he found Palm. He refused to leave unless he found her.

The elevator door closed as soon as Ikalgo stepped out, and moved up again. There, Brovoda was already waiting for its return. After a ding, the door opened once again and he stepped inside and pressed for the door to close again and move to the underground floor. Ikalgo's slip of words put his mind in unrest, so he knew confronting him was the best option. Ikalgo was unaware Brovoda's decision to join him on the ground floor, while Brovoda wasn't aware of Welfin watching him as he was going down the elevator.

Welfin chose to remain hidden until the elevator came back up and the doors opened. He knew Brovoda noticed Ikalgo's slip of tongue too, hence he decided to go and interrogate him. Welfin was just about to do the same and stepped onto the elevator, only the get hit by the rotting smell of a corpse. The strong stench numbed his overly-sensitive nose, and he was forced to step back out of the elevator, holding onto his nose with both hands.

_"Has Flutter been living in a morgue?! What's that stench?"_

It didn't take too long for him to figure out that something was wrong here. It wasn't just "Flutter's" slip of tongue, the fact that Morel's group of Hunters just infiltrated the palace and the fact that "Flutter" was able to run past one of these strong Hunters without a fight just didn't seem right to him. All these things started to add up in his head, and in the end he somehow managed to think of an even bigger conspiracy. In it, Brovoda played a big part of it, along with Flutter. If Brovoda was keeping an eye on him while he was keeping an eye on Flutter, then maybe the two were working together to try and ambush him. In that case, going down the elevator would be a trap. Welfin took a while to think everything over, and in the end he decided not to follow the two Chimera ants. Instead, he went on a search for Bizeff; the only person who had unlimited access to the bottom floor.

After their talk with Zeno, Himeko, Gon and Killua made their way inside the tower, where they found Neferpitou. Neferpitou paid no attention to the trio and continued using _Doctor Blythe _to tend Komugi's wounds. It was an order from the King, so she had to put her full concentration into healing Komugi just like the King wanted. The trio watched the sickening scene of the young girl's cut open stomach being operated by the large, doll-like creature while Neferpitou was watching carefully. Why she was so focused on healing someone who didn't look of much importance made them wonder. But Gon didn't come all this way just to see his enemy do such a thoughtful act.

Neferpitou who simply diverted all her attention to Komugi, suddenly got an urge to look back. First it was her cat ears that perked up. She didn't like that feeling, there was something very sinister standing behind her. Slowly turning her head around, her eyes met those of the boy emitting a black aura. She didn't know how long he might have been standing there, neither did she realise that Gon's two friends were standing behind him. Out of the three, only Gon who was emitting that vengeful aura was noticeable.

"Do you remember me?" Gon asked after seeing that he caught her attention. "I'm Gon Freecss, I came to get Kite back from you!"

Despite Gon's roaring voice echoing off the walls of the silent, and empty room, Neferpitou simply couldn't hear a word he said. Gon posed a threat to both Komugi and herself, and in her current state while healing the young girl she simply couldn't fight. She couldn't fight and heal Komugi at the same time, it was impossible for her to use _Nen_ for both. But in order to follow Mereum's orders, she had to continue healing Komugi and make sure nothing happened to her.

_"Whatever happens, I must protect Komugi."_

Unlike Gon who was momentarily only fixated on Neferpitou, Himeko and Killua looked at the bigger picture in front of them. With _Doctor Blythe_ operating on Komugi, they each began to ask themselves a couple of questions. Killua couldn't sense any _Nen_ coming from the Royal Guard, although three opponents were standing right in front of her. It made him wonder why she wasn't preparing to attack, or whether she even considered them as a threat.

_"She's utterly defenceless in that state without her Nen!" _he thought._ "Does she actually plan on fighting us without her Nen? No, she can't win like that! Gon's Nen is more intense than usual, even Neferpitou wouldn't be able to keep up with him like that. Or maybe she thinks she can activate her Nen just in time before we manage to land an attack on her. We're far away enough for her to have time to do just that, so there is a possibility." _But although that was a plausible theory, Killua still thought that something was off. _"No, that's not it!"_

While Killua was fixed on figuring out why she wasn't attacking them, Himeko thought about the situation from a different angle. It had less to do with the Royal Guard and more to do with the girl who was lying unconscious behind her. But there was something she just couldn't shake off._ "The King just left the room with both the Chairman and that other old man, if anything, the Royal Guards would be going with him in order to protect him. But, she just stayed behind. She's prioritising that girl over the King's safety, but she wouldn't do that unless it's an order from the King." _She continued to stare at the girl, who's injury looked big enough to be life-threatening. _"It must be the King's order to operate on the girl, so who exactly is she? Maybe a Hunter? No, she was most likely hit by one of those arrows from before. If she knew Nen, she would have been able to avoid the attack. Then, she's just an ordinary girl. The King left with the Chairman to go and fight somewhere further away from the palace, maybe to avoid causing her more injuries, and even Pitou is devoting her full attention to healing her. So much that she didn't even notice us standing her for some time. Despite us being here, Pitou is still healing her although Colt said she can only use her Nen to either heal or fight." _In the end, Himeko too came up with a theory. _"She could be the reason why none of the Royal Guards were in the throne room with the King. Whoever she is, she is important to Pitou, and more importantly the King. We might be able to use her!"_

Despite their difference in thoughts, they both were surprised to see Neferpitou's next move. She exhibited the behaviour of a mother cat, protecting her kitten from predators. Although it only confirmed Himeko's theory, it raised a few other questions within her.

_"She's protecting her from us, but why would the King go through such lengths to keep the girl safe?"_ She pondered on the question for a while. _"A love affair? No, maybe friendship then? But he murdered his own mother, is he really capable of harbouring such emotions?" _She quickly found herself shaking off those theories, ending up on square one again.

Killua found himself even more confused by the Chimera ant's sudden action. The Royal Guards would only protect the King, so why was she protecting a human girl? Even sight of Neferpitou protecting Komugi left a bad taste in his mouth. _"Is she even capable of of protecting someone other than the King? That's ridiculous! She wasn't programmed to do something like that, she was made to protect the King and the King only." _He then remembered his grandfathers puzzling words before disappearing._ 'I'll leave it up to your interpretation.' _It just confused him even further._ "What did he mean by that?"_

With his mind purely fixed on Neferpitou, it took a little longer for Gon to spot Komugi's body laying behind the Chimera ant. The silver-haired injured girl brought back a haunting image of Kite's mindless body being ruthlessly tortured by the ants.

"Get away from her!"

These were the first words Neferpitou's brain could process. The black aura Gon was emitting, and the tone of his voice was more than enough to let her know that this wasn't a request. It was an order. With Gon slowly approaching her one step at a time, Neferpitou began to tense up. She wasn't afraid of Gon, but she was scared of the possibility that he might do something to Komugi. In her current condition, one careless movement could prove fatal.

With his enemy not moving an inch from where she was sitting, Gon decided to raise his voice. "I told you to take that monster and get away from her! Get away from that girl, and fight me! Fight me so I can get Kite back!"

Gon still wasn't aware of the fact that the Royal Guard was healing the young girl. In fact, none of the three were able to come up with that conclusion at first glance. The ability Neferpitou was using on Komugi was the same ability she used on countless of her victims to experiment on. Thanks to that ability, the Chimera ants were able to learn about _Nen_, a skill only humans possessed. Knowing the history of her ruthless trials on humans, it was quite easy for someone to come up with the same conclusion as Gon.

Neferpitou could only attempt to think of a solution to avoid the problem. She was in no position to follow his demands, if she did, Komugi would die and she would be going against the King's orders. Someone who was inferior to her in terms of strength seemed so threatening to her position as a Royal Guard. She feared for Komugi's life, and she feared for the consequences Komugi's death would bring to her. Fighting was no option, but she knew the boy in front of her wasn't going to take no for an answer. Yes, he was a young boy, just a child to be precise. He looked like a child, and he was acting like one. Gon's actions reminded her of a temper tantrum a little boy would throw when he didn't get what he want. If she didn't give him what he wanted, it would get worse. His tantrum was enough to kill Mereum's 'important person'. Other than fighting, she only had one other option to deal with this. She lowered her head, placing both of her hands on the ground, palms facing upwards.

Killua was the first person to recognise the gesture, but seeing it come from someone like Neferpitou astonished him. Although he knew exactly what it meant, he wasted no time thinking about it twice. _"Palm's facing up, she's telling Gon that she doesn't pose a threat to him. She isn't planning on fighting him."_

_"Is she surrendering?" _Although only Killua knew the meaning behind Neferpitou's body language, with her head hung low and her palm's facing upwards even Himeko and Gon could understand what was going on. In Himeko's head, she could picture the image of a beggar who would use the same gesture to beg for money. She didn't know whether she was surrendering or begging, but she understood that Gon was the person with more power.

Whilst Himeko and Killua remained relatively calm while trying to analyse the situation, Gon, who also understood the meaning behind Neferpitou's submissive gesture stared at her with widened eyes. It was infuriating to see her act so weak. Gon grew furious to see this creature act so human in front of his very eyes.

"Please, wait!" Neferpitou muttered quietly. But her pleading words and her soft voice only did more harm than good.

"What the hell?!" Gon snapped once again, his voice piercing through all three individuals standing in the room. "What am I supposed to wait for?!" He took a couple of deep breaths while looking at his target, before he continued to take his anger out on her. "Get up, we are getting out of here!"

Despite his words, Neferpitou didn't argue back. Instead, she stayed in that same position, her eyes still facing the ground, letting Gon know that she was weaker than him. The King's Royal Guard shouldn't be like this, Gon thought. She was supposed to bite back, she wasn't supposed to listen to his orders, she wasn't supposed to lower her head. Despite the fact that he held more power than her, Gon still felt powerless. All this anger he held in for the past months, he didn't know who to direct them at. Now that he found his target, the target obeyed his words and tried to compromise with him.

Himeko initially thought that letting off some steam would do him some good. When she saw Gon looking at the tower with malice, she thought that if Gon was able to word out his frustration once he faced Neferpitou, he would be able to calm down a little. She thought it would help him focus more and set his mind straight. But no one predicted this sudden turn of events, not even Killua. In fact, Killua looked more flabbergasted than her to see Neferpitou's motherly protectiveness. But now that she was standing inside the tower with Gon facing Neferpitou, her prediction proved to be wrong. Neferpitou's cooperation when Gon was venting his anger seemed to be making things worse.

Meanwhile, Zeno's words that were floating through Killua's mind finally began to make some sense. Zeno's mission was solely to transport the Chairman to the King's location and use the dragon to separate the King from his Royal Guards. Zeno wasn't aware of Komugi's presence inside the palace, he didn't know anything 'beyond the mission'. It was also his fault that Komugi got injured, neither the King nor the Royal Guards inflicted that wound. When he thought back to the time Neferpitou stopped using her _En_ during Knov's infiltration a few days ago, his theory behind the King's injury started to make more sense than the theory Himeko proposed that made sense at the time.

_"This girl must be the third party none of us knew about, and she is also the reason the King hurt himself."_ After putting two and two together, this was the conclusion her came up with. _"Why would the King do something so out of character though? She's someone special to the King." _Killua eventually reached to the same point Himeko made just a while ago. Neither of them knew the exact relationship between the King and Komugi, they could only conclude that she was 'someone special' to him. Although Neferpitou still hasn't fully confirmed their theory, her actions were more than enough to prove them right for now. _"She isn't taking her apart, she's healing her under the King's orders."_

While Himeko decided to remain quiet in this situation, Killua was thinking of a way to calm Gon down. Whatever he was going to say, he had to choose the words very carefully. This was the sole reason Himeko just watched without saying a word. A slip of tongue would only enrage Gon further.

_"What do I tell him?"_ Killua wondered, knowing that Gon would have also figured out Neferpitou's motives by now. With such determination to stay by Komugi's side, Gon would know that she was healing her and not taking her apart. Just then, Gon who was standing in the middle of the room, moved closer towards his opponent._ "He knows! What do I do?" _Just when he was about to call out to him, his voice was cut off.

"I'll do anything you want!" Neferpitou pleaded desperately, as Gon was approaching her. "I'll do anything you say, so just wait! Please, just let me save this girl!"

There was an eerie silence surrounding the room as everyone waited for Gon to make his next move. Killua and Himeko let out a breath of air, knowing very well that this was the calm before the storm. They were mentally preparing themselves for the worst to come. Gon was about to unleash the storm of emotions brewing inside of him.

"Save?" Gon repeated her words, but unlike his vexed tone he used until now, his tone was monotonous, and eyes were vacant of any emotions. "What do you want to save?" What even was the reason behind Gon's change in tone? Was he so angry that he just didn't know how to express himself anymore? No, he didn't know what to feel anymore. In his head, he could repeatedly hear Neferpitou's defenceless voice repeating the word 'save' over, and over again. So much that he didn't know what to do anymore. Why was she saving someone when all she did was torture and kill people?

Killua and Himeko were able to read Gon's thoughts like an open book, just as they always did. He didn't need to express himself like he always did, in this tense situation where they could only look at either Gon or Neferpitou it was very clear what both parties were thinking. But only one of the two felt it was appropriate to interrupt.

"Anything?" Killua joined Gon and began questioning Neferpitou. He approached them very cautiously, hoping to negotiate. "You said you'd do anything, what exactly did you mean by that?"

But before he could interrogate any further, and before Neferpitou could answer his question, Gon cut in. "Killua." This was the first time Gon used that monotonous voice to address his friend. "I'm asking the questions!"

Gon's way of talking caused Killua to gasp. His tone was similar to Illumi's, almost too identical. The comparison sent icy shivers down his spine.

_"This is bad, he isn't listening to Killua either. He wants us to stay out of this conversation." _Himeko thought, as she saw Killua take a few steps back from her peripheral vision. Sooner or later, she expected Gon to stop listening to Killua, but she never imagined it to turn out to be this frightening. There was no one left who would be able to control him, the only person who could potentially do something was Kite, but he was the reason behind Gon's change in character. _"It's better for Pitou to keep on healing that girl. If she's of great importance to the King, her death would turn out to be the worst-case scenario, not just for us, it could mean the end for every living thing on the earth. Pitou isn't scared of Gon, she is scared of that worst-case scenario."_

The room went silent again, and without anyone left to intervene, Gon repeated his question. "What did you mean by save? What is it that you must save?"

Thick, nauseating tension began to fill the room, and the deafening silence only made it more intolerable. The longer she took to answer, the more impatient Gon would grow; Neferpitou knew that. A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead, as she carefully thought about her answer. "This person is someone important to my King." Aware of her place in this situation, she chose to tell the truth. "She's the reason the King is who he is. If she dies, he will cease to be the person he is."

She was talking about the worst-case scenario Himeko theorised only moments ago.

"She's important to the King," she repeated. "All I want to do is to heal her. After I'm done, I'll do anything you want. So, please wait!"

"You want to save her? You must save her?" Gon who was able to stand still until now suddenly began trembling in rage as he slowly repeated her words. His shoulders were shaking, his breathing became unsteady and loud enough to be heard echoing within the hollow room. Not able to hold his anger in any longer, Gon was left with just one other option. He started to emit the same black aura from earlier, his loud, bitter voice resonating through the room. "How dare you?" He yelled spitefully. "Damn it! I'm not listening to you, I won't listen to you!"

Momentarily, Neferpitou got the same image in her head as before. A young child throwing a temper tantrum, because that's the only thing he was capable of. But although she only saw him as a child, her body couldn't help but involuntarily flinch as Gon proceeded to step closer to her, and Komugi.

"Gon, hold it!" At the sound of Killua's voice, Gon stopped walking. "It's likely that we were the reason that girl is injured, it was probably my grandpa's _Dragon Dive_." Killua attempted to reason with Gon, stepping closer to him, hoping he could at least prevent him from doing something they'd all regret later on.

"So what?"

"Pitou is probably telling the truth about wanting to heal her?"

"And?"

"Let's wait for her to finish."

Killua chose his words carefully, knowing that he couldn't get Gon's hopes up. But Gon noticed the way Killua worded his sentences. "'Likely'? 'Probably'?" He repeated the two words Killua selectively used. "You want me to wait because of 'likely' and 'probably'? And after we wait, you expect this thing will do whatever we tell it to do?!" The anger Gon directed at Neferpitou, he now shifted to Killua, who could only hopelessly stare at his back. "Likely? Probably? Are you serious?!"

With Killua having gone quiet, Himeko decided to open her mouth for the first time since the mission started. "Gon, you know yourself that Pitou is trying to heal that girl," she pointed out. _"Otherwise you wouldn't be so angry. The whole reason you're this pissed is because she's protecting that girl from you. She's healing her with the same abilities she used to mess up Kite." _But she could only say the first part. Gon wasn't in the right mindset to deal with her blunt opinions right now. "That girl is important to the King, I don't know how she got herself involved in all this, but she is just an innocent bystander, and our side was responsible for her injuries. She won't even be able to survive for five minutes without an oxygen mask, she'll bleed out if she doesn't get proper medical attention. Only Pitou can give her the medical attention she needs, and she'll bleed to death before any of us could get her to a proper hospital. You can imagine what would happen if something does end up happening to her. This whole mission and everyones' efforts would go to waste."

Gon's breathing was still uneven, he was waiting for her to finish talking.

"Two wrongs won't make a right, you know that Gon!" Neferpitou, Himeko and Killua waited for a response from Gon, seeing how his body only continued to shake. Her words had little, no, they had absolutely no effect on him. Regardless of Killua's cautious approach, or Himeko's more direct approach, Gon refused to listen.

"Himeko," he called her name in a calmer manner. Despite his tone, Himeko and Killua felt like something was off. It was _Himeko, _not once has Gon ever called her Himeko. It was always _Kou_. He was so used to calling her Kou, this couldn't have just been a simple slip of tongue. He was aware of the fact that he called her Himeko. It was his way of telling her to stay out if it too. "How can you be so sure?" He questioned her confidence in a theory she came up with using simple observations and words coming straight out of her enemy's mouth. "How can you be so sure about that?"

Neither Killua's 'likely' and 'probably', nor Himeko's confident words had any effect. Both approaches just made him direct his frustration at his friends. Gon who had his back towards the pair up until now, turned around to look them in the eyes before he began venting his anger.

"Is something wrong with you two?!" He screamed. "You want me to trust this thing? You want me to trust what it's saying? I can't do something like that!"

The sound of bones being shattered was loud enough to catch the trio off guard, and they turned to see where the noise was coming from. Neferpitou who realised that neither of Gon's friends could do anything to ease the situation, decided to come up with her own way to earn Gon's trust. The only way she could think of was immobilising her own body, and making herself less threatening than she was already. She did it out of desperation. Gon, Himeko and Killua could see desperation in her eyes. This gesture managed to catch all of them off guard as they gasped at the sight of Neferpitou breaking her own arm. Everyone was surprised, even Gon.

"If this isn't enough, I'll let you break my right arm as well." She offered, wincing in pain as she held onto her broken left arm. "If you aren't still satisfied with that, you can take both of my legs. You can break any part of my body that isn't required for me to heal her, if you think I won't hold my word. Please, just let me save her!"

Gon felt at loss of words. He was whimpering, hoping words would come out on their own. Hoping he could just curse at her, but his mind was too clouded to even think of anything. He tried directing his anger at her, he tried directing his anger at his friends, but none of that worked. After stumbling back, he found himself on the ground. Without any other way to vent his frustration, he smashed the ground using his fists.

"That's not fair," he cried out, pointing his finger at the Royal Guard. "That's not fair! Why are you helping her, after everything you did to Kite?" As his tears fell to the ground, he released another surge of aura, this time much stronger than the previous ones. "Why?! It's not fair on Kite!" The surge of aura was so strong, it was enough to exhaust him. His chest heaved rapidly as he was heavily panting for air. But most of his exhaustion was caused mentally. He screamed, he yelled, he cried; Killua and Himeko have never seen him like this before. He wasted a lot of his energy just doing that, the fact that he was still able to get up on his feet was surprising enough.

"To hell with that!" Gon wobbled on his feet, trying to stay up. "To hell with everything!" Once he was steady on his feet, he prepared to use his _Janken_ to attack. "First comes rock."

"Gon, don't do it!" But Gon just ignored Himeko's attempt to talk him out of it. He quietly continued to charge his attack aimed directly at Neferpitou.

"Gon, if you kill Pitou, we'll never get Kite back." Killua knew his words would be the only way to stop Gon, and just as predicted, Gon stopped charging his _Janken. _But in the quietness of the room, Killua could only wait and see what Gon had to say to that.

"It must be easy for you two," he muttered, irritated to have heard how steady their voices were compared to his own. Gon couldn't face the two as he was saying this, all he could do was clench his fists to control himself from stepping over the line. But that didn't stop him from doing so anyway. "You two are perfectly calm, since this all means nothing to you."

The room fell silent again, with Gon having expressed his annoyance. In these kinds of situations, Killua would always be the first to argue back, calling him a 'moron' or an 'idiot' for thinking that and trying to sort him out. But all the words he would usually say, he swallowed back, making this silence even longer, and more unbearable.

In the end, a heaved sigh filled the room. "If that's what you think." Himeko announced with a clear, unaffected voice, before she started heading towards the exit. Gon didn't watch her leave, neither did Killua turn his head to watch her walk out. Only Neferpitou had a clear view from where she was sitting. "Take some time to calm down, I'll be waiting outside until then." With Himeko gone, only Gon, Neferpitou, Killua and the unconscious Komugi were left in the room. After Himeko voiced out her own opinion, Killua took the opportunity to voice out some of his own thoughts. The sole reason he came on this mission was to protect Gon. It was something he promised himself, and if he was going to continue to walk on eggshells around Gon, Gon was definitely going to end up destroying himself.

"I'm only saying this because you're out of control. Remember what you said when we first arrived here?" He asked, hoping it would remind Gon of why they were planning on fighting Neferpitou in the first place. "We came to get Kite back! Pull yourself together!"

Their words made Gon think. Both Himeko and Killua were telling him to calm down, and to pull himself together. It was funny actually. To him, both of his friends seemed perfectly fine with everything. Even now, they were accusing him of being out of control when the real enemy was sitting right in front of them. Not once did they raise their voices at the enemy. In the end, both of his friends raised their voices at him. "Yeah, I'm fine now."

He wasn't fine. No one was fine.

Killua knitted his brows as he sadly watched Gon march towards the Royal Guard. Ever since he met Gon, this was the first time he felt so lonely. This was the first time they had a proper argument. It was the first time they all felt disconnected.

"How long do I have to wait?" Gon asked Neferpitou.

Startled by his words, she began to estimate the time it would take her to heal Komugi. "To heal her completely, I need at least three to four hours."

"I won't wait that long."

Neferpitou looked at Gon's displeased face, mentally calculating the time it would take to at least get the girl out of a critical condition. "An hour, if you give me an hour I can at least heal her more serious injuries."

"Then in an hour, you'll have to come to Peijing with me to heal Kite."

"If you give me an hour, I promise to do that!"

Hearing her word of approval, Gon sat down right in front of her, his eyes not leaving her once. "Then, I'll wait here for an hour." All Neferpitou could do was try to calm down and focus her attention back on Komugi. It took some effort to restrain Gon, but as long as she didn't move from her place, she knew he wouldn't do anything rash. So, the hour wait began.

Meanwhile, during the time Killua and Gon were still inside the room exchanging their last words, Himeko was outside listening while leaning against the wall. Gon's voice sounded calmer, but it still had that empty, monotone. She let out another sigh, relieved that Killua managed to somehow wrap the mess up for now. The real challenge was going to begin in an hour.

_"We have an hour until Pitou agreed to fight us, but Gon doesn't seem to want us to fight with him,"_ she thought. As her eyes were glued to the floor, her mind started wandering off to what the other groups might be doing. _"An hour, will the others be able to put up with everything for another hour? If it wasn't for that girl, we could have fought her by now, but it's important for us to keep her safe too. Gon's planning on taking Pitou to Peijing anyway, so I doubt she'll get caught up in anything again. But still I think it's better for me to remind him just in case. Hopefully the hour of silence will calm his nerves, I'll tell him then."_

After sensing the sudden appearance of an aura, Himeko snapped out of her thoughts. Surprised, her eyes immediately travelled up to see Meleoron standing in front of her. He must have been standing there for quite some time whilst using his ability to turn invisible.

"Is this a good time for me to interrupt?" He asked, obviously worried about her. From his tone, she knew he was standing there long enough to see what was going on inside with Gon.

"Well, yeah. What's up? Is something wrong?"

"It's just, shouldn't you be inside with everyone else?"

"Oh, you're asking why I suddenly decided to walk out!" Since Meleoron didn't respond, she understood that's what he was after. "If I stayed in there any longer than this, I would have probably ended up saying a lot of mean things. The mission is my priority, I can't let my emotions get in the way of it. If I did end up saying something, it would've just torn us apart even further. In order for those two to work with me as a team, they need to trust me first. I can't break their trust, especially not now."

Meleoron couldn't point out anything that was abnormal about her way of talking. She was talking as if nothing even happened in there, that's how composed she was. To him, it honestly looked like Gon's words never had any effect on her, but at the same time, he knew that was impossible. Despite her facade, she must have been angry at Gon, but also a little disappointed at him for pushing her away. One thing Meleoron learnt about her while spending time training together was her straightforwardness when it came to her words. But now he managed to see a different side to her. She didn't look capable of holding back her emotions, so he was surprised to see how good of an actress she was.

"By the way, where did Knuckle go? Weren't you two supposed to be together?" Himeko could sense what he was thinking, so she changed the topic. He stood there long enough to hear Gon's words, so anyone would be curious to why she wasn't more upset. Meleoron was wrong, she was upset. Deep down, she wanted to go back inside and slap some sense into Gon so he could finally snap out of it, but she was in no position to do so. Her mission was of higher priority than her own emotions, so although she was upset with Gon, she didn't think it was important to let the world know. It would only distract her and worry the people around her.

Natsume said the same thing before the mission started, she had to separate her emotions from her task and give the task more importance. He labelled this as 'professionalism'. After giving his teacher's words some thought, it reminded her of what her mother would always say. Regardless of her situation, Himeko was always expected to smile. She was taught to keep her head high and smile even if she were to receive criticism. Anger and sorrow were two ugly emotions that looked improper for someone like her to wear. A smile served as an iron mask, distracting everyone from her real, inner thoughts. She thought of this as a fairly useless skill to possess, until now that is.

"Oh, that's right. I need either you or Killua to help me out. Could you call him over for me?" Himeko nodded, before she stepped back inside the room. Killua was quietly standing in the middle of it, staring at Gon's back. While Gon was talking to Neferpitou and negotiating a time for them to fight, she made sure to not draw any attention to herself. Killua's immense concentration was focused solely on Gon, so much that he couldn't sense her approach him. A light tap on his shoulder managed to snap him out of it, and he turned around to see the girl who marched out a couple of seconds ago return.

"Did something happen?" He whispered quietly, seeing how she tried to avoid Neferpitou's attention.

She then gestured towards the door, and there Killua managed to spot Meleoron, who was waving them over. "We have a small problem. I'll have to borrow you for a moment." Killua's eyes travelled to Gon, who was now motionlessly sitting in front of his target. Seeing this, Himeko reassured him, "Gon seems to have calmed down for now. He got what he wanted, he will wait until the hour is up before doing something rash again. Until then, we should try and help the others."

_"She's calm." _Seeing how relaxed she was, Killua figured that this wasn't the right time to worry about Gon. _"She's right, the others must have started their respective fights. I doubt they'll be able to keep up until the hour is up. If anything I'm capable of fighting, so I should help around." _He gave her a pat on the back, assuring her that he's fine. "Don't worry, let's go!" Saying this, he walked towards the exit.

_"He says that, but he looked out of it." _Nonetheless, Himeko looked back at Gon before following Killua out. Meleoron patiently waited for their return, and once they arrived, he began filling them in on the situation. From Shoot's fight with Menthuthuyoupi, to Knuckle's sudden involvement in the battle. He thoroughly explained Shoot's conditions, his injuries and the fact that he passed out in front of the central staircase, while Knuckle taunted the Royal Guard into chasing him away from Shoot. Shoot only managed to keep up with Menthuthuyoupi for a little while, so he doubted that Knuckle was able to hold up against him for too long by himself. Since the pair managed to buy an hour from Neferpitou, Meleoron suggested that one of the two should help Knuckle fight against Menthuthuyoupi. Since he could only guide one person using his _God's Accomplice_ at a time, they had to decide between themselves.

"Do you know where they are right now?" Himeko asked.

"I do remember which direction Knuckle was headed to."

Himeko gave it a quick thought. Knuckle was quite strong by himself, she doubted that she could match him in terms of strength. But he was buying time for Shoot to recover, so as long as she helped him do that, it was fine. Before she gave an answer, she glanced at Killua, only to see him in his own little thinking bubble. "That's fine, I'll come with you!"

But despite her surprisingly confident response, Killua disapproved of it. "No, I'll go with him," he interjected. "You stay here!"

Normally, she would argue back and think of a way to decide who should go, such as a childish way of rock, paper, scissors. Killua expected her to do the same this time, but she didn't. "Fine, you go and I'll stay here." It was an unexpected response from her part, but Killua only nodded in response. "Meleoron, before you go. Did you run into Toshiro and Natsume on the way here?"

Meleoron shook his head in response. He only knew the location of Knuckle and Shoot, "I can keep my eye out for them."

"Thanks! In that case, I'll be in one of the rooms here. Let me know if you need any help." She pointed towards her left, indicating that she'll be waiting in one of the rooms down that corridor. "Be careful, you two!"

"Keep an eye out for anything strange while we're gone." Killua instructed her, to which she nodded in agreement. _"She's unusually calm. Not even I'm that calm, that's completely out of character for her."_ Although he was worried, the decisions Himeko took up until now were all better than his own. Compared to him who strayed from the mission once, she stuck to the mission just like he told her to. She didn't intervene when Gon was taking his anger out on Neferpitou, and she walked out of the room to cut herself off from their conversation. It was definitely out of character, the opposite of what she would usually do. But at the same time, it gave him some peace of mind. After watching her head the other way, Killua turned around and with the help of Meleoron's _God's Accomplice_, they both rushed to help Knuckle, who was by himself, up against Menthuthuyoupi.

* * *

**A/n-** I'm alive! I hope everyone had a nice Christmas break, and a good start into the New year!

**Review Corner:**

**Dungeon Inspector- **This chapter was kinda a verbal Gon vs. Pitou lol. And you'll just have to wait and see to find out what Kou will be doing during the Election arc :)

**SilverDewDrop-** I have some friends who procrastinate, and others who would literally lock themselves in their rooms a month before exams. (Guess which one I am lol) No but seriously I get distracted really easily, especially when I have my phone on me. I get this urge to share my progress with the world on snapchat every couple of minutes, so if I have someone (preferably someone who's usually in a bad mood during revision) to take my phone away from me, and sit in front of me while we revise together, I will most likely revise. It takes a lot of effort for me to actually do work though, it's actually quite sad now that I think about it.

And with designer babies you 'edit their features' outside the womb and then put the fertilised egg inside the womb I think. I imagine the process of editing the egg when it's inside the womb to be quite painful actually. And yes, it's very painful to type out Menthuthuyoupi and Apendnoiraud every single time.

**havanatitania-** Kou is a big girl now, she won't cry. No, jk. She just has a very weird way of dealing with things.

**Guest-** Thanks for waiting, sorry for not posting in 3 months. I'd honestly love to just write and not attend school but I need to work hard so I can at least fantasise about buying a Tesla. No but seriously, I've been caught up in a lot of work recently, and these kinds of chapters require more planning than other chapters.

**Guest (2)- **Feel free to pick your own poison, whether it's Koullua, Pikakou or Koun(?) Well, it officially is a fanfic with Killua and Kurapika as romantic interests, I just can't imagine Gon to be mature enough to be romantically involved with someone. I feel like Kurapika is a stretch too sometimes, but then again he's a lot more mature than Gon. I'm sure there are stories about a outspoken girl and a 'good' boy out there somewhere, but I do see your point.

**Queechi-** Why would you need a life if you can just read more chapters? ^^

No, just kidding. I need a life too. Help!

**fourteenie-** As an (unprofessional) writer, it makes me really happy to hear when someone say they're enjoying my fanfic. It makes me prouder to hear someone say that they find my portrayal more effective than the original. If I could draw, I would've probably illustrate some chapters in my free time, but I'm not that good. I'm only going to draw cover pictures for this fanfic and for the sequel.

**Justpassingby-** Hey, thank you for just passing by and leaving a review. I won't abandon it, since there aren't that many chapters left until this part of the story finishes. I feel like it's a shame to abandon it when I already wrote so much already.

Regarding my school status I do feel it's only fair for me to let you guys know since I took months to update. I did apply for med school but I'm only going to start attending in September/October (depending on the uni I get into). The school I'm going to right now is quite far away too, and the commute is nearly 2 hours, and since some of my teachers are being extra, they feel like they have to set us work that's not relevant to our syllabus just for 'future reference' since most of the girls in my class (Biology and Chemistry) are planning on doing science related degrees, and for most of them they'll have to know how to write lab reports. Even if we don't need them, our teachers tell us it's a good skill to have. But with the commute and the reports, as well as extra curricular activities I do such as volunteering, my piano lessons etc, I do find it hard to sit down and write chapters. Chapters such as this one as mentioned earlier require me to watched the anime a few times, read the manga and plan the chapters and the order of each individual battle, so they take really long. I feel like once I'm done with the Chimera ant arc, I'll be able to focus more time on actually writing chapters than 'planning' them (since I'm not planning on following the Election arc word by word and planning on 'free styling' it more... if that makes sense lol)

But the good news is, I won't get any busier than I am right now next year. The commute would take around the same time (if I'm not moving out, which I doubt I will), and the work load won't be a lot if I manage to split it up efficiently (let's see how that goes). But yeah, don't worry. I'm not planning on abandoning this fic ^^


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